Liberia Business News: VIABLE TO MAINTAIN CUSTOMERS’ TRUST

Monrovia-Sapelle International Bank Liberia Limited (SIBLL) is fully capitalized in consonance with the Central Bank of Liberia’s (CBL’s) regulations and viable to maintain its customers and the public trust, an in-depth investigation conducted by this paper has revealed that.

A few days ago, some media houses claimed in their reportage that the bank had gone bankrupt and had failed to meet the satisfaction of its customers, suggesting non-compliance with the Central of Liberia’s regulations for all banking institutions across the country.

Following this report, this media house launched an independent investigation into the allegations to establish as to whether or not the bank is truly liquidated, and that customers’ demands are not being met as well as its non-compliance with the CBL.

Outcome of the investigation established no record or incident of customers walking to the SIBLL formerly GN Bank Liberia Limited and not being paid on demand or customers having difficulties in making withdrawals contrary to the first media report.

Documents seen showed that former GN Bank, now SIBLL was given a license to operate as a commercial bank in Liberia in 2016 and at the time of the acquisition of the license, First International Bank Liberia Limited (FIBLL), now defunct, was in the process of bankruptcy.

To prevent the damage to the entire banking industry from the collapse of FIBLL and its negative implication for all other banks, the CBL entered into an arrangement with SIB Liberia Limited to take a significant portion of the assets and liabilities of the defunct banking institution.

Accordingly, this arrangement intended to protect the reliability of the Liberian banking sector, while the transaction between SIB and the CBL, therefore maintained the nation’s confidence in the financial industry and prevented an outright collapse of the former bank, which would have caused significant damage to the country’s financial industry.

At the same time, the documents revealed that SIBLL, through that arrangement, inherited or took over a legacy deposit of US$23.2 million.

It adds that this liability if FIBLL had been allowed to be fully liquidated, would have been a debt to be paid by the Liberian Government and the Central Bank of Liberia.

This media entity by deeper research gathered reliably that SIBLL has paid so far US$14.9 million to the legacy depositors of FIBLL from 2016 up to the end of December 2023.

Through this effort, SIB saved key depositors such as NASSCORP, National Port Authority, National Disaster Management, Weasua Transport and many more companies and individuals from losing their deposits.

The investigation also found that the recent intervention made by the Central Bank of Liberia, by paying US$8.0 Million to SIBLL was done to reduce the burden on the bank of the payment of US$14.9 million which was made to the legacy depositors of the defunct FIBLL by SIBLL.

Our authoritative sources within the confines of the SIBLL emphasized that the payment was not a stabilization fund, nor a payment made to prevent the bank from failing or going under.

“The payment represents a reimbursement of portions of payment SIBLL made for and on behalf of the government and the Central Bank of Liberia to the legacy depositors of the defunct First International Bank Liberia Limited,” a highly placed source within the CBL said.

We gathered that SIBLL has recently upgraded its core banking application system to improve digital and electronic banking offerings and make banking convenient to the Liberian people.

SIBLL which is considered one of the best and fastest-growing banking institutions, considering its staff of 157, is currently operating in 17 locations in Liberia.

“It is expected that SIB would continue to be in Liberia for a lifetime and would continue to introduce innovative products and services to serve the people of Liberia,” a source within the bank told this paper.

At the same time, many of the customers who begged not to be named in this publication expressed disappointment in those media houses for what they called an unsubstantiated publication.

“This negative publication about the SIBLL is propaganda and the reason behind their actions remains unknown. Some of us who have been doing business with this bank have never and are not experiencing anything of such mentioned in their publication,” a customer said.

Also, other impeccable contacts we spoke with at the CBL expressed shock over the information contained in the publication which claimed that the SIBLL has not been in compliance with the Central Bank of Liberia.

“What is baffling some of us is to be alarmed that the bank has not been in compliance with the CBL’s regulations. That is untrue. We are under obligation to protect the fiscal space of this country and the citizens as such we don’t cannot do a cover-up for whatever commercial bank, including the SIBLL but the fact remains that the SIBLL is in full compliance with our regulations and policies,” the CBL sources told this paper.