Ashford W. Meikle, Staff Reporter
The National Commercial Bank branch at 54 King Street. Come August 2, its operations will be transferred to the Duke and Barry streets branch. - IAN ALLEN/STAFFPHOTOGRAPHER
NATIONAL COMMERCIAL Bank (NCB) has cut staff in its consolidation exercise at two downtown Kingston branches, group managing director of NCB, Patrick Hylton, told the Financial Gleaner.
Staff at the 54 King Street and the Duke and Barry streets branches were affected. Up until the end of May, NCB had a full-time staff complement of about 2,400 but, according to one source, could see a reduction in its staff numbers by at least one third. NCB's direct competitor, Scotiabank, has about 1,000 full-time staff members spread across its 36 branches. NCB has 41
branches.
REDUCTION IN JOBS
"Both locations combined have seen a total reduction in jobs of approximately 30 per cent," said Mr. Hylton. Prior to the redundancy exercise, there were about 100 employees at both branches. "All positions are [being] reviewed in the restructuring exercise," he added.
The staff cuts come in the wake of the NCB's decision to merge both branches, with the operations of the King Street locale transferred to Duke and Barry streets come August 2. According to Mr. Hylton, the branch will retain 12 per cent of the staff on a part-time basis.
Another factor involved in relocating the bank's operations to the Duke and Barry streets location was its physical layout.
A source told the Financial Gleaner that the building at 54 King Street did not satisfy the criteria for the standardisation of the bank. "The layout of the [King Street] branch is unusual, and it would be difficult to convert it like the other branches." NCB admitted as much, in a press release. "The decision was made to merge these two branches in order to take advantage of the opportunity to improve the physical environment for customers and employees."
NCB's restructuring exercise started last November when the bank commissioned its branch efficiency programme (BEP) to study its banking operations.
The recommendations of the study were first effected in February when the 1-7 Knutsford Branch was used as a pilot project and a third of the staff was sent home. A similar exercise took place weeks later at the Liguanea branch.
Interestingly, for its interim first quarter to March 31 this year, NCB staff costs amounted $1.4 billion, a 34 per cent increase over the comparative period in 2004 when it paid out a little over $1 billion. In fact a substantial portion of the additional $400 million increase was used for redundancy costs. In fact, there is expected to be a spike in employment costs in the subsequent quarters with the provision of redundancy costs.
In a previous interview with this newspaper, Mr. Hylton said, the re-engineering process "optimise the efficiency of staff in [NCB's] branches. We are trying right now to create a very efficient model in NCB." In fact, he attempted to downplay the latest restructuring exercise and the potential savings for the bank. "While we do believe that there may be savings, the decision to merge the branches is to best use [NCB's] resources to serve customers."
The branch efficiency programme of the bank is expected to be completed within the next three months.
"The current ? exercise is slated to be completed by the end of NCB's current financial year, which is September 30 ? all branches are involved in the branch efficiency project," said Mr. Hylton. He added that NCB does not "have a target staff complement working with. As the BEP is rolled out in each branch, the transaction volumes there dictate the number of staff that is required."
Since its take-over by Michael Lee Chin three years ago, NCB has upgraded its information technology system with a massive investment in the CORE banking system software. This has resulted in a reduction in back office operations and the reduction in teller functions.
