First Citizens Bank is a bank based in Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...

. First Citizens has assets of over TT$

Trinidad and Tobago dollar

The dollar is the currency of Trinidad and Tobago. It is normally abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or alternatively TT$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies. It is subdivided into 100 cents...

15 billion, 22 branches in Trinidad

Trinidad

Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...

 and two on Tobago

Tobago

Tobago is the smaller of the two main islands that make up the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located in the southern Caribbean, northeast of the island of Trinidad and southeast of Grenada. The island lies outside the hurricane belt...

. It wholly owns First Citizens (St. Lucia) Limited, which it established as an offshore

Offshore investment

Offshore investment is the keeping of money in a jurisdiction other than one's country of residence. Offshore jurisdictions are a commonly accepted solution to reducing tax burdens levied in most countries to both large and small scale investors alike...

 financial vehicle for the Bank and its subsidiaries and also to conduct selected banking and financial service operations in the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

 Region.

History

On September 13, 1993 the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago

Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago

The Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago is the central bank of Trinidad and Tobago.The Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago is located in the Eric Williams Financial Complex. The complex consists of the central bank auditorium and two sky-scrapers, locally known as the twin towers...

 merged three government-owned entities, National Commercial Bank (NCB), the Trinidad Co-operative Bank (TCB), and the Workers' Bank to form First Citizens Bank.

• NCB formally commenced business in 1970. Bank of Montreal
  Bank of Montreal
  The Bank of Montreal , , or BMO Financial Group, is the fourth largest bank in Canada by deposits. The Bank of Montreal was founded on June 23, 1817 by John Richardson and eight merchants in a rented house in Montreal, Quebec. On May 19, 1817 the Articles of Association were adopted, making it...
  
   sold its branch and operations in Trinidad and Tobago, which it had acquired from Bank of London and Montreal
  Bank of London and Montreal
  The Bank of London and Montreal was a joint venture between Bank of London and South America , an affiliate of Lloyds Bank, and Bank of Montreal...
  
  , to the government, which used the acquisition as the foundation for National Commercial Bank. National Commercial Bank was the first truly locally owned, controlled and operated commercial bank in Trinidad and Tobago. It eventually grew its branch network to cover the entire country, but by 1992 the Inspector of Banks deemed NCB financially unsound and its shares almost worthless as its bad debts amounted to about T$1 billion.
• TCB, founded in 1914 as a co-operative savings and loans institution, pioneered the provision of consumer finance and home mortgages for the then working-class of Port of Spain
  Port of Spain
  Port of Spain, also written as Port-of-Spain, is the capital of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and the country's third-largest municipality, after San Fernando and Chaguanas. The city has a municipal population of 49,031 , a metropolitan population of 128,026 and a transient daily population...
  
  . It ran into difficulties and in 1986 the government took it over.
• The predecessor of Workers Bank, which commenced operations in 1971, had its roots in the trade union and credit union
  Credit union
  A credit union is a cooperative financial institution that is owned and controlled by its members and operated for the purpose of promoting thrift, providing credit at competitive rates, and providing other financial services to its members...
  
   movements, and helped develop the home mortgage market. It was essentially bankrupt by 1989 and had to be reorganized. Still, by 1993 it had over T$800 million in bad debts.