CBB educates public during Open Day
Yesterday, the Central Bank of Barbados threw open its doors affording members of the public a peep into its operations.
The Open Day was part of the Bank’s 45th Anniversary Celebrations.
Throughout the day curious Barbadians took the opportunity to meet the staff, learn about the departments, get informed about treasury notes/debentures, savings bonds, how to protect themselves from counterfeiters, as well as tour the ten-storey building located in the heart of the City.
The Central Bank was established in May 1972 by the Government of Barbados to advance the pace of economic development in the country. Today, the Bank has become the premier financial institution in the country and its main policy is to formulate, in association with Government, monetary and fiscal policies to assist with the country’s economic development programme.
Senior Examiner with The Bank Supervision Department, Estherline O’Neal, shared with the Barbados Advocate that her department is responsible for oversight of the banking system.
“We are the department that regulates and supervise commercial banks and other financial institutions such as Globe Finance, Signia, Capita, and Consolidated Finance. We issue guidelines and other regulations and we would go periodically into the financial institutions and conduct inspections, just to make sure that they are operating within the arm of the law and within the guidelines that we have issued … We ensure that depositors are safe,” she explained.
The Currency Division is responsible for maintaining an adequate supply of Barbadian currency in circulation. According to Currency Officer (Ag) Carla Eversley “As part of that mandate we also educate the public about the features of money so that they can detect counterfeit money and that is a part of our programme called Know Your Money.”
She described that division as “a banker to the commercial banks”, “Therefore our services to the general public are limited. They can come in to have notes verified to see if there are counterfeit or not, but in terms of issuing notes, coins and even foreign currency that is a service we perform for the commercial banks solely.”
Novaline Brewster, Public Affairs Officer at the Central Bank expressed that she was very happy with the response from both the public and staff of the Bank, making the Open Day a success. She also recalled that this was not the first time such an activity was held at the Bank.
“For our 40th anniversary, we had a similar Open Day and the response was so resounding that we decided to do it again because a lot of people don’t know what exactly takes place the Central Bank of Barbados.” (TL)