BATT appoints new Executive Director

The Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go has ap­point­ed Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Ke­ston How­ell as its new head. He re­places Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Kel­ly Bute-Seaton, who held the post for the past 10 years.

In a state­ment, the As­so­ci­a­tion thanked Bute-Seaton for her con­tri­bu­tion to the op­er­a­tions and de­vel­op­ment of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. The As­so­ci­a­tion ex­tend­ed its best wish­es to her and stat­ed that it looks for­ward to con­tin­ued progress un­der the lead­er­ship of How­ell as he ad­vances its strate­gic man­date.

How­ell has more than three decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in the fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor. His back­ground in­cludes roles in bank­ing, in­sur­ance, in­vest­ments, cap­i­tal mar­kets and wealth man­age­ment.

Be­fore join­ing the As­so­ci­a­tion, How­ell served in se­nior po­si­tions across fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions. He al­so con­tributed to sec­tor de­vel­op­ment through his in­volve­ment with the Se­cu­ri­ties Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go In­sur­ance Com­pa­nies. His work with these bod­ies sup­port­ed col­lab­o­ra­tion across the sec­tor and al­lowed en­gage­ment on mat­ters re­lat­ed to reg­u­la­tion, trans­paren­cy and con­sumer is­sues.

As Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor, How­ell will lead ini­tia­tives re­lat­ed to pub­lic en­gage­ment, fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy, eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, ease of do­ing busi­ness and the con­tin­ued mod­ern­iza­tion of the fi­nan­cial sys­tem through dig­i­tal process­es.

How­ell said he re­mains com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that the bank­ing sec­tor plays a role in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. He not­ed that the sec­tor sup­ports eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, tech­nol­o­gy, and fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty.

The As­so­ci­a­tion stat­ed that How­ell’s ex­pe­ri­ence and ap­proach will sup­port its mis­sion and strength­en its work across the in­dus­try.

The Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go was formed in 1997. Its eight mem­ber banks are Citibank Trinidad and To­ba­go, First­Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al Bank Trinidad and To­ba­go, First Cit­i­zens Bank, JMMB Bank Trinidad and To­ba­go, Re­pub­lic Bank, Sco­tia­bank Trinidad and To­ba­go, RBC Roy­al Bank Trinidad and To­ba­go and ANSA Bank. The As­so­ci­a­tion pro­vides a plat­form for these in­sti­tu­tions to en­gage on is­sues fac­ing the com­mer­cial bank­ing sec­tor.