Two branch­es of Sco­tia­bank have been closed tem­porar­i­ly and en­hanced health and safe­ty pro­to­cols im­ple­ment­ed, fol­low­ing con­fir­ma­tion of a COVID-19 pos­i­tive case at each lo­ca­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued by Sco­tia­bank, its branch­es at Diego Mar­tin and In­de­pen­dence Square in Port of Spain will un­der­go “strin­gent deep clean­ing and san­i­ti­za­tion pri­or to re­open­ing in or­der to safe­guard the health and well­be­ing of em­ploy­ees and cus­tomers”.

“We have been in­formed that an em­ploy­ee of the Diego Mar­tin branch and an em­ploy­ee of the In­de­pen­dence Square branch have been di­ag­nosed with COVID-19,” Sco­tia­bank con­firms in its re­lease. “Our col­leagues have been quar­an­tined since ex­hibit­ing symp­toms and are now un­der med­ical su­per­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Health.”

Sco­tia­bank adds: “Em­ploy­ees who work in the two branch­es were im­me­di­ate­ly no­ti­fied, are in the process of be­ing test­ed and are self-iso­lat­ing for the stip­u­lat­ed 14 days.”

The bank ad­vis­es that its In­de­pen­dence Square branch is closed un­til fur­ther no­tice, while its Diego Mar­tin branch will re­open on Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 22, 2020, with a new ro­ta­tion of em­ploy­ees avail­able to serve cus­tomers.

Sco­tia­bank urges cit­i­zens to take all nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions to re­duce their risk of COVID-19 in­fec­tion.

It al­so re­minds cus­tomers of its Sco­tia On­Line Bank­ing fa­cil­i­ty, as well as the Sco­tia Caribbean app to pay bills and trans­fer funds, among oth­er fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions.

The bank al­so re­it­er­ates the mea­sures it has put in place at all its lo­ca­tions:

■  So­cial dis­tanc­ing: there is a lim­it to the num­ber of per­sons that can en­ter any lo­ca­tion and con­duct busi­ness at any giv­en time.

■  Con­tact­less tem­per­a­ture screen­ing up­on en­try at all Sco­tia­bank lo­ca­tions.

■  Re­quire­ment that all vis­i­tors/cus­tomers wear face masks when vis­it­ing the bank’s branch­es. These may be tem­porar­i­ly re­moved for trans­ac­tions re­quir­ing when ID con­fir­ma­tion.

■  Trans­par­ent pan­els have been in­stalled at the counter spaces to help pro­vide a safe bar­ri­er while con­duct­ing trans­ac­tions. These bar­ri­ers are al­so with­in the em­ploy­ee spaces.

■  Fre­quent deep clean­ing of bank branch­es every busi­ness day, in­clud­ing san­i­tiz­ing of all sur­faces (door han­dles, ATM key­pads and screens, pin pads, chair han­dles, desks, re­cep­tion ar­eas, teller wick­ets and wash­rooms), and hand san­i­tiz­er is avail­able in-branch for use by both em­ploy­ees and cus­tomers.