NCB Mer­chant Bank (T&T) said yes­ter­day the US$2 mil­lion that was seized by T&T Cus­toms and Ex­cise of­fi­cials last month is the prop­er­ty of the bank and “re­lates to a trans­ac­tion con­duct­ed in the or­di­nary course of busi­ness with an­oth­er reg­u­lat­ed fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion.”

In a news re­lease re­spond­ing to a news­pa­per re­port on the for­eign ex­change cash seizure, NCB Mer­chant Bank said the trans­ac­tion was ini­ti­at­ed and ex­e­cut­ed in ac­cor­dance with the bank’s es­tab­lished op­er­a­tional pro­ce­dures and all ap­plic­a­ble le­gal, reg­u­la­to­ry and se­cu­ri­ty re­quire­ments.

The fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion said, “The cash forms part of a le­git­i­mate in­ter-in­sti­tu­tion­al trans­ac­tion and was in­tend­ed to tran­sit with­in the NCB Group pur­suant to es­tab­lished busi­ness arrange­ments. Im­por­tant­ly, while the phys­i­cal cash would be tran­sit­ing, the un­der­ly­ing val­ue would not. Up­on com­ple­tion of the tran­sit process, NCB Mer­chant Bank would be ful­ly com­pen­sat­ed in US dol­lars for the cash, en­sur­ing that the bank’s fi­nan­cial po­si­tion and eco­nom­ic in­ter­est in the trans­ac­tion re­main pro­tect­ed through­out.”

The mer­chant bank said it con­tin­ues to co­op­er­ate ful­ly with the rel­e­vant reg­u­la­to­ry and su­per­vi­so­ry au­thor­i­ties in T&T and Ja­maica and re­mains com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing all re­views and ad­min­is­tra­tive process­es as­so­ci­at­ed with this mat­ter.

NCB Mer­chant Bank said it re­mained com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing the high­est stan­dards of com­pli­ance, gov­er­nance, trans­paren­cy, risk man­age­ment and op­er­a­tional in­tegri­ty across all as­pects of its busi­ness.

The bank said it is a li­censed fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion un­der the Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act, 2008 and an au­tho­rised deal­er un­der the Ex­change Con­trol Act.

“As such, the bank is per­mit­ted, sub­ject to ap­plic­a­ble le­gal and reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments, to im­port and ex­port notes of any class that are, or have at any time been, le­gal ten­der in Trinidad and To­ba­go or any oth­er ju­ris­dic­tion,” the bank said.

NCB Mer­chant Bank (T&T) is part of the Kingston, Ja­maica-head­quar­tered NCB Fi­nan­cial Group, a di­ver­si­fied fi­nan­cial ser­vices group with op­er­a­tions span­ning more than 20 Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries, cross-list­ed on the Ja­maica and Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­changes.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, NCBMBTT de­liv­ers in­vest­ment bank­ing, cap­i­tal mar­kets, wealth man­age­ment, and cor­po­rate fi­nanc­ing so­lu­tions to in­di­vid­u­als, busi­ness­es, and in­sti­tu­tion­al clients. Its ca­pa­bil­i­ties en­com­pass eq­ui­ty and debt cap­i­tal mar­kets, struc­tured and project fi­nance, merg­ers and ac­qui­si­tions ad­vi­so­ry, al­ter­na­tive in­vest­ments, for­eign ex­change deal­ing, and pri­vate bank­ing.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, the Cen­tral Bank said the mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed and it has noth­ing to add at this time.

Asked whether lo­cal banks re­quire the per­mis­sion of the Cen­tral Bank to ex­port US cur­ren­cy, a spokesper­son for the reg­u­la­tor of fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions said, “A li­censee un­der the Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act and an au­tho­rised deal­ers un­der the Ex­change Con­trol Act is per­mit­ted to ex­port any notes of a class which are, or have at any time been, le­gal ten­der in T&T or in any oth­er coun­try.”