Hermes Bank Covid-19 Statement

In the best interest of our clients and employees, Hermes Bank Limited is committed to following all guidelines set forth by authorities in order to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Responding to mandates by the Government of Saint Lucia, the Bank has invested significant resources to outfit all employees with the relevant hardware and technology to remain fully flexible for remote operation whenever necessary in the fight against the global pandemic. The management of Hermes Bank does not take lightly the impact on lives and welfare of citizens the world over and has thus activated systems which allow for safe operation of our team with no disruption in the operation of the bank.

We encourage our clients to continue reaching out to us through our regular channels as we remain available to meet your needs and help you navigate the current challenges with minimal impact.

Hermes Bank at 2019 CAB Conference

Taking up the mandate of "bridging banking services with customer experiences" and "creating customer connections that transcend the traditional relationship" the Caribbean Association of Banks brings together key regional players in the banking sector into an exclusive forum to facilitate "brainstorming on issues facing the industry". As a Caribbean bank with a European focus Hermes Bank is not immune to the wave of regulatory change sweeping through the region. The 2019 conference held at the Sonesta Resort in Sint Martin allowed for discussion on building a unified front against mega-issues as well as recognizing opportunities for growth in sectors unique to the Caribbean.

Already on a path characterized by cutting-edge technology the representatives of the bank found merit in re-examining the opportunities presented to regional banks through fintech innovation. Maintaining a competitive edge through product differentiation and improved turnaround times has no down-side in the current climate thus Hermes Bank easily embraced ideas shared in round table discussions on prospects in emerging technologies.

Hermes Bank at the Assembly of FELEBAN

The 53rd Annual Assembly of the FELABAN was convened from 2nd to 5th November 2019 as doors opened at the Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood, Florida, to unique networking opportunities hosted by the Florida International Bankers Association. A modest delegation of 1900 included financial representatives from Latin America and connected business partners worldwide sharing ideas and forging new relationships.

Drawing on common experiences and best practices for doing business within the region, the bankers focused on overcoming challenges posed by international shifts in regulation and innovation. Ever keen on making inroads into new jurisdictions, Directors of Hermes Bank seized the opportunity for creating new links within the region in consideration of diversifying into the Latin American market.

Hermes Bank at SIBOS in London

In September 2019, for the first time since its inception SIBOS took center stage in London amid some of the world's most innovative minds at home in the thriving financial capital. Thousands of finance professionals descended on the super-charged networking arena with appetites honed toward discussions of innovation and financial revolution. Hermes Bank took full advantage of the opportunity to share ideas and build the right relationships intended to fuel change within the organization.

Fostering an environment poised for continuous improvement, representatives of the bank remain focused on advancement in the use of technological platforms and expanding networks to support growth of our corporate clients. The conference theme "Thriving in a Hyper-Connected World" fed into the underlying vision of the bank as it seeks opportunity in "data-driven relationships". Examining the impact of new technology on structures, business culture and models allowed for high level dialogue on the realities surrounding mass digitization in our current era.

The four-day conference provided a refreshing glimpse into the future of banking and challenged all in attendance to up their game in maximizing cost cutting benefits of real time payments and use of digital technology. The resounding message to representatives of Hermes Bank was an emphasis on effective resource management for sustaining resilience in the changing corporate ecosystem.

Hermes Bank at CAB

Hermes Bank is a fully international bank seeking ties with regional partners, drawing on strength found in numbers. Testimony to this is its continued alliance with financial players within the Caribbean. This year’s annual conference of the Caribbean Association of Banks was held in Nassau, Bahamas from 31st October to 2nd November 2018 under the theme: “Banking in the Era of Digitization: The New Normal?” In attendance were one of the Directors of the Bank along with the Assistant General Manager. They are in full agreement that this year’s program provided a refreshing perspective in encouraging change within the industry.

Directors of the bank engaged in dialogue with the senior representative of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank on the change in thrust of the financial industry toward cutting edge technology and innovation. These talks have finally begun to bear fruit as regional entities strive to buy in to pilot projects which will usher in a new vision for financial practitioners.

At this year’s conference financial institutions were urged to “adjust their operating environments and adopt structures which embrace change while adapting to new systems and maintaining a healthy risk appetite.” They were further exhorted to carefully assess the need and strategies for integrating new technology in to their operating processes.

Hermes Bank with its forward thinking focus is among many institutions embracing the new face of banking within the region. Directors are always seeking innovative technology in advancing the delivery of service to its clients. They continue to be optimistic that the Bank is up to the challenge of remaining competitive in the face of changing consumer demands.

Hermes Bank at SIBOS

Sydney, Australia hosted SIBOS 2018 for 4 days in October 2018 for the 3rd time since the origination of SIBOS 40 years ago.

Bank, payment companies and trade service groups as well as many related segments of the financial market converged on the International Convention Centre from 22nd to 25th October to partake in the annual activity organized by SWIFT. Many took the opportunity to gain insights and share practices. Others used the forum to initiate sales and new business opportunities.

Directors of Hermes Bank were in attendance and experienced firsthand sobering discussions on the growing importance of high technology in global issues of financial cyber-security. They took a further glimpse into the future of AI, quantum computing, distributed ledger technology and other technologies as well as their tremendous impact on the delivery of financial services and habits of consumers the world over. The Bank is keeping in step with global financial giants in its adoption of high technology in security measures and innovative solutions to meet the growing demands of its diverse clientele.

These advancements come against a backdrop of significant global change impacting Banking Institutions, particularly with Anti-Money Laundering and regulatory demands. SIBOS provides an abundance of resources and access to professionals within the finance market to allow for the right type of networking and advance thinking in the current global environment. Hermes Bank keeps making use of such resources in maintaining strict adherence to international treaties and best banking practices.

The Bank is fully compliant with FATCA, CRS and EU 4th Directive, to name a few. Continued collaboration with banking industry leaders, are a valuable affirmation that we are doing things right.

6th Tax Compliance for Financial Institutions

From 7th to 9th November, officials of Hermes bank reaffirmed their commitment to regulatory transparency by turning their attention to adopting CRS updates and sustaining FATCA compliance.

The 6th Annual Tax Compliance conference held at Times Square, New York brought together a global pool of acclaimed professionals in their field. In attendance, the bank benefited from the experience of industry experts from international players such as BNP Paribas, JPMorgan Chase, BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Thomson Reuters and others as well as the Internal Revenue Services (IRS).

In preparation for the inaugural year of country by country reporting the bank continues to examine FATCA and CRS requirements from various perspectives to mitigate risk and adopt best industry practices.

Clients of the bank continue to be reassured by the bank's unwavering commitment to meeting industry challenges while remaining customer focused and delivering exceptional service using cutting edge technology platforms.

Hermes bank at New Dawn 2017

Hermes Bank participated as a co-sponsor and a delegate in the first-ever joint Russian/Eurasian-Caribbean economic, media and academic forum, organized by the Ministry of International Business, the Government of Grenada, the Bering-Bellingshausen Institute for the Americas (“IBBA”), the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and supported by a number of other economic and academic institutions and organizations as well as the nation’s leading media.

Starting November 1, 2017 the Forum convened a dialogue platform to finance experts, business community and government authorities from Caribbean Community member nations, Russia and Eurasia and represented a vital milestone towards this multi-national cooperation since the new opportunities for development and enhancement of business communication and relationships were addressed.

One of the initiatives of such cooperation is the establishment of the First Caribbean Innovation and Technology Center, which was announced in the framework of the Forum. The Center is planned to be developed in partnership with Skolkovo Technopark - the largest technopark in Europe.

Hermes Bank intends to support as a bank-sponsor the initiatives planned, including the foundation of the First Caribbean Innovation and Technology Center, aiming at economic evolution of the region by means of new technologies attraction, job creation, exchange of experience with other countries etc.

Due to a great success, the organizers informed the guests that the Forum from now on would be held on an annual basis. Hermes Bank will be among the active participants of the future events and will be glad to facilitate contacts with partners in the framework of these annual conferences.

Hermes Bank on AML/KYC solution to CAB members

Hermes bank is to participate in the Caribbean Association of Banks' Annual General Meeting and Conference that will gather financial services professionals from throughout the Caribbean on November 15-18, 2017.

Apart from this upcoming event Hermes Bank representatives have already participated in such important for the financial world conferences as SIBOS2017 and SWELL2017 in Canada where the most relevant topics of de-risking and associated KYC/AML issues were brought to discussion.

Having studied the issues in depth with the leading experts of the industry from round the world Hermes Bank plans to bring up the topic during the CAB conference and share the information gathered with the Caribbean community.

Hermes Bank supports the initiative of establishing a pan-Caribbean corresponding banking hub, that would take upon itself to create and support corresponding banking relationships with banks in United States, Canada, Europe and Asia, as well as to perform required AML/KYC international transaction pre-vetting.

Hermes bank at SWELL and SIBOS 2017

This October Toronto became the center of financial world: SIBOS2017 – organized by SWIFT – and SWELL2017 – organized by Ripple – two conferences took place in Canada’s biggest and richest city gathering top financial sector representatives from around the world to discuss de-risking, compliance practices, and increasing pressure from regulators, new technologies and all the latest news of the industry.

Hermes bank was amongst participants who took part in both events aiming to meet with current partners, consider new cooperation opportunities and gather most relevant information in order to further align to global trends.

In the framework of these two conferences, Hermes Bank team held a number of very important meetings - SIBOS2017 allowed us to exchange views with banking industry leaders, like JP Morgan and Mizuho, while SWELL2017 provided a very fruitful negotiations on mutually beneficial co-operation with Jed McCaleb, founder of Stellar.

Hermes Bank – Contingency Announcement

In 2017 Caribbean region has seen several devastating hurricanes, with catastrophic implications for CARICOM states infrastructure, and, sadly, with loss of life.

Hermes Bank’s Information Technology (IT) infrastructure was strategically designed as a multi-site, geographically diversified & highly available to ensure always-on, uninterrupted service to our customers even under the most severe conditions of wide-scale power outages, intermittent network & internet communication disruptions, caused by a natural or man-made disasters.

This is achieved by deploying all of our in-house IT systems to at least two, geographically independent locations (located within EU) and by leveraging the power of content delivery network (CDN) and load balancing, to deliver the ultimate uninterrupted banking experience to our clients.

We take appropriate actions for the delivery of services to customers while considering and addressing the needs of our employees and their families. Safety of our staff is our first priority, and in the event of government-issued hurricane/storm warning, we will encourage all Caribbean-based non-key personnel to remain at home.

Our clients will be notified of any service scale-down via Hermes Bank internet bank and e-mail.

Hermes Bank – Tempo Money Transfer agreement on strategic partnership

Revolutionary digital technology is changing the face of international transactions and remittances. As a leading player in the field of digital banking, Hermes Bank is proud to announce that August 14,2017 an agreement on a strategic partnership has been signed with Tempo Money Transfer, a leading European licensed payment institution based in Paris, France. TEMPO offers online, mobile and traditional money transfer services from Europe to over 88 countries across the globe.

Registered in the West Indies, Hermes Bank has major focus on Digital Banking, FinTech and e-commerce. The bank will channel payments and engage in international settlements on behalf of TEMPO around the world, including to major payment corridors like the Philippines, Bangladesh, Morocco, Sri Lanka, and Latin America. Furthermore, Hermes Bank will provide a liquidity boost to facilitate TEMPO’s own settlement operations. This will in turn, enable Tempo to make money transfer faster and more efficient

Founder, President, and member of the Tempo’s Board of Directors, Jeffrey M. Phaneuf believes that cooperation with IT and Fintech driven banks, such as Hermes Bank, shall furnish Tempo with significant new growth opportunities, as well as positively affect current company operations.

After completing the connection of Hermes Bank to the Stellar network, a distributed ledger technology that is currently used by major payment institutions and banks like the ICICI bank in India; this interface will further enhance Tempo’s quality customer service experience.

Summarizing the strategic partnership, Tempo’s Co-founder and Chief Information Officer Anthony Barker said ‘Our clients will enjoy even higher speed of transfer delivery, lower costs and improved foreign exchange rates.

There is no doubt that the liquidity boost from Hermes Bank will further TEMPO’s growth and speed up their already rapid remittances services.

Hermes Bank initiated Saint Lucia inclusion into Bloomberg trading systems

In order to facilitate own trading and treasury activities, Hermes Bank decided to join the biggest trading platform which unites more than 320,000 market participants in the financial world.

Hermes Bank became the first Saint Lucian Bank to get authorization from Bloomberg to trade via their platform, and thus initiated inclusion of Saint Lucia into Bloomberg trading system.

Bloomberg legal and compliance team had performed an extensive review of the country’s laws and banking charter in order to establish this capability. Upon review completion and technical setup, trading contracts via multilateral platforms were enabled and currently are valid and enforceable.

Trading Systems empowers players to manage their portfolios, execute and settle their trades, and make decisions that move the markets. Trillions of dollars pass through the systems on a daily basis.

Hermes Bank joins the Caribbean Association of Banks

This September Hermes Bank became a Member of the Caribbean Association of Banks (CAB), a representative body that protects, promotes and strengthens the regional banking sector.

The CAB membership makes Hermes bank part of a community of banks and other regulated financial institutions in the Caribbean Region and provides premier networking platform, reliable and relevant source of information, industry-specific education and training, as well as gives an opportunity to exchange experiences and best practices with other members, discuss the most relevant issues impacting the financial services community.

Caribbean Association of Banks was formed in 1974 and currently represents forty six (46) banks and financial institutions in the Caribbean with an asset base in excess of US$31 billion, in addition to ten (10) Service members comprising regional and international technological and professional institutions and three (3) Honorary Members

Hermes Bank go live with the AUTOFORM Suite of products for T24

The highly successful new St Lucian bank, today went live with the AUTOFORM Product suite for their installation of T24 Model Bank. True to their ethos of ‘offering high quality services in less time’, Hermes Bank went from initial consultation to live in under 4 weeks, thanks to the great working partnership they established with EFS Technology.

Now Hermes Bank is able to bring all the advantages of the AUTOFORM product suite to their staff and customers, including full automation of complex workflows, improving the bank’s performance and quality of workflow, as well as helping to streamline their (soon to be launched) high performance internet banking service

Source: http://www.efstechnology.com/hermes-bank-go-live-with-the-autoform-suite-of-products-for-t24/

Hermes Bank upgrades its Temenos Core Banking System to the latest release

In March 2015, Hermes Bank became among the first to upgrade to the latest release of Temenos T24 core banking system – R15. The new system provides many technical and functional enhancements, which will strengthen the bank's core banking operations, improve the customer banking experience, improve customer service and address market challenges of today and tomorrow.

Temenos T24 has been designed to meet the needs of modern international banking, combining industry-leading tools, open technology and the latest standards for connectivity with broad business functionality

T24 enables us to deploy and control a flexible range of multi-channel, next generation banking services for banks customers – efficiently, securely, cost effectively and profitably.

Providing the most innovative solution in the market today, T24 is the only system that can encompass both front and back office, supporting business operations in every banking sector and offering functional depth and breadth to support all operations activities in the banking business.

Hermes Bank at “The Caribbean Dilemma” conference

Representatives of the Hermes Bank on March 30, 2017 participated in the conference entitled ‘The Caribbean Dilemma’, which is part of the Americas Conference Series, organized by the Miami Herald and presented by the World Bank.

The Conference brought together executives, distinguished senior policy-makers, renowned economists, businesspersons and top government leaders from around the Caribbean to identify common opportunities and discuss solutions for sustained growth across the region.

St Lucia’s Prime Minister Allen Chastanet and Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell of Grenada were among Caribbean panelists to take a long-term view on what are the key priorities and challenges shared by small economies and their efforts to strengthen fiscal and financial policies.

Anti-Money Laundering & Compliance Review – KPMG

In November 2016, the Bank engaged the services of Independent Auditing Firm, KPMG to complete an in-depth review of the compliance practices of the bank. This was with a view to ensure that all aspects of our banking operation are in line with international standards and laws.

The Bank’s principal business activities comprise the provision of personalized banking and corporate financial services, including current and fixed term deposit accounts. The audit report reflected that the bank has developed internal procedures to deal with the changing Geo-Political & Economic Environment.

The review concluded that the Bank is in compliance with the provisions of the Money Laundering Prevention Act No. 8 of 2010 and amendments thereto. Their findings also confirmed our full compliance with Directive 2005/60 of the European Parliament and of the Council and Commission Directive 2006/70 - EU 3rd Directive.

All recommendations made for improvement have been fully implemented.

IBAN

We are proud to announce that following our initiative, Saint Lucia has now adopted the IBAN numbering system.

The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is an international standard for identifying bank accounts (excluding credit cards). The main purpose of the IBAN is to facilitate the automatic processing of money transfers, to improve the speed and accuracy of your payment transactions

FATCA

FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) was passed into law in 2010 as part of the HIRE (Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment) Act. Starting from July 1st 2014, all foreign financial institutions will be required to report account information of all US Persons to the IRS. Anyone belonging to one or more of the following categories falls under the classification of a US Person:

• A citizen of the United States, including any person born in the U.S. but resident in another country, who has not renounced their U.S. citizenship
• A lawful resident of the U.S., including a U.S. green card holder
• Anyone who is residing in the U.S.
• Physical persons spending a significant number of days in the U.S. each year.
• U.S. corporations, U.S. estates and U.S. trusts.

The act also requires foreign financial institutions such as banks to report all accounts belonging to US persons to the IRS. Non-compliance will leave the foreign financial institutions subject to a 30% withholding on any US investments.

FATCA further requires US citizens with foreign financial assets above certain limits to report these assets to the IRS in their annual tax filings.

More information about FATCA and how this may impact your relationship with Hermes is available HERE