Republic Group: Banking on a Sustainable Future

As an indigenous Caribbean financial institution, Republic Bank Financial Holdings (RFHL) remains committed to strengthening the region’s economies in sustainable ways.

We acknowledge that we exist within the vulnerabilities of Small Island Developing States and larger emerging nations, challenged by climate change and other global socio-economic shocks like industrial downturns, ricocheting energy prices and the ongoing pandemic.

However, the unique sensitivities of the nations in which we have established connections does not mean that there is no hope for green, supportable economic development.

On the contrary, our diverse Caribbean economies have always presented inestimable natural and human resources, rich opportunities for innovation and markets ripe for growth. We continue to champion and invest in MSMEs (micro, small and medium business enterprises), which the World Bank confirms contribute up to 50% of global employment, as well as 40% of GDP in emerging economies like the Caribbean, Ghana, Guyana and Suriname, where RFHL serves proudly.

Access to financing and to business management knowledge continues to plague MSMEs globally. In addition to consistently ensuring that our products and services meet the needs of all our business clients—large, medium, small and micro—we provide a business management toolkit to help owners and managers build their knowledge base and gain access to helpful support tools to grow their MSMEs.

As a result of being rooted in Caribbean economies, RFHL has developed an acute responsiveness to the needs of the people and cultures that surround and fill our buildings, and not insignificant expertise in what best drives the region’s growth. This is one of the reasons why we hold Caribbean sustainability so close to our hearts, as a driving force in our own strategic vision.

The recently concluded Sustainable Development Movement Summit 2020, which we co-sponsored with the OECS, is an excellent example of our organisational calibration to sustainable goals. Speakers from across the world, including Les Brown and Chinedu Echeru, inspired attendees to ignite the fire of sustainable development and innovation across the region.

The summit also hosted the exciting conclusion of the Business Model Competition, where 30 Caribbean entrepreneurs were selected to gain access to eight weeks of capacity-building. This training prepared them to face a daunting Pitch Room at the end of the summit, hosted by Daymond John, well-known from ABC’s Shark Tank show and president of the Shark Group. After the entrepreneurs competed against each other for prizes of up to US$20,000, three winners from St KItts & Nevis, Antigua & Barbuda and Trinidad & Tobago emerged victorious.

In September 2020, RFHL went even further in building sustainability into our structure by becoming one of 185 banks that are signatories to the UNEP Finance Initiative’s Principles of Responsible Banking. These principles give a tangible framework for financial institutions to align themselves with sustainable practices and policies, and keep the needs and goals of the societies we serve in the forefront of our strategic vision.

Principles #2 & #3 are already within our sights for alignment, in the light of the global Covid-19 pandemic. In order to manage risks to the communities that we serve, given that social distancing has become our responsible reality, our digital banking services have expanded so that personal banking customers throughout the region can now make transfers to external financial institutions and bill payments to utility agencies at the click of a mouse. MSMEs have also been able to onboard quickly to our Epay platform, that allows them to receive credit card payments from customers, even without a website; an affordable and customised solution to ensure that even during the necessary health restrictions, small business owners could continue to operate with little to no downtime.

Stakeholder input is also crucial to our success as a sustainable regional bank, as Principle #4 posits. RFHL is critically aware that no man—or financial institution—is an island. We all are part of the communities that we seek to operate in and advance. We’ve engaged diverse community stakeholders in the pursuit of sustainable development through the Power to Make a Difference program, which operates in all the Caribbean territories in which the RFHL is established.

The Programme lasers in on building excellence in entrepreneurship, as well as youth development, healthcare initiatives and poverty alleviation. And through this programme, RFHL made a contribution equaling US$2 million to help provide debt and poverty alleviation relief across all the Caribbean territories in which it operates, made necessary by the unfortunate fallout of the current pandemic.

The drive toward sustainability is a global responsibility. And RFHL is fully aware of and committed to its role in achieving this important ecological and economic balance, as a responsible Caribbean corporate citizen. When we hold ourselves accountable to having positive impacts on our societies, to having a culture of responsible banking and to being transparent about our goals, policies and alignments, we invest in building these principles into the lifeblood of the nations we serve.