Banking standards

The importance of financial integrity has risen dramatically in the past years, especially after the accounting and auditing scandals in the U.S. Although the bank has since its inception adhered to its own strict internal policies and procedures to safeguard its integrity, the bank is required by law to follow the rules and regulations defined by the national regulators, namely “De Bank van de Nederlandse Antillen” and “De Centrale Bank van Aruba”.

Corporate Governance
The corporate governance is formed by the bank's Supervisory Board of Directors.
Both the BNA and the CBA have adopted Guidance Notes for the Board of Directors of Supervised Financial Institutions on Corporate Governance, as well as Best Practice Guidelines.

Central Bank
The bank is subject to its government appointed regulators, namely “De Bank van de Nederlandse Antillen” for the operations in Curacao, Bonaire, and Aruba, and “De Centrale Bank van Aruba” for the Aruba operation.
With respect to the Central Banks' efforts to promote the stability of the home currency and the sound and efficient financial system, the bank has always abided by their policies, rules and regulations.
The Central Banks supervise onshore banks to guarantee depositors and other creditors' funds at banking institutions, and the soundness of the financial sector in general. Also, the Central Banks manage the foreign exchange reserves, which includes the regulating of balance of payments between the residents- and non residents of the Netherlands Antilles or Aruba.

For more information on the policies, rules, and procedures of our Central Banks, please visit www.centralbank.an for the Netherlands Antilles or www.cbaruba.org for Aruba.



Know Your Customer (KYC) policy
The bank recognizes that effective KYC controls and procedures are critical in protecting the safety and soundness of the bank and consequently the local financial industry.
The bank's KYC program is based on policies and procedures for customer identification, customer acceptance, and risk management. Within the customer identification program that bank verifies the identity of new customers, while in the customer acceptance program the bank has descriptions of clients that should not be permitted to open accounts. It is for these reasons that the bank cannot open accounts without the customer being physically present.
On another note, the KYC-rules of our country has allowed the Netherlands Antilles to obtain the Qualified Intermediary status from the USA Internal Revenue Service, which confirms our status of a reputable international financial center.



Customer due diligence program
The bank recognizes the importance of having adequate controls and procedures in place to safeguard it against being used for criminal or fraudulent purposes. A key part of these controls is the so-called customer due diligence. Due diligence is performed on both new and existing clients to minimize reputational, operational, and legal risks.



Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF)
The CFATF is part of the global FATF. The FATF is an inter-governmental body who's purpose is the development and promotion of policies, at both national and international levels, to combat money laundering.
The FATF monitors members' progress in implementing anti-money laundering measures, reviews money laundering techniques and counter-measures, and promotes the adoption and implementation of anti-money laundering measures globally. The 40 FATF recommendations have been incorporated in our national legal system to combat money laundering, also loally known as MOT. (Office for the Reporting of Unusual Transactions)



National Ordinance-Meldpunt Ongebruikelijke Transacties (MOT)
Both the government of the Netherlands Antilles and that of Aruba have introduced legislation to combat money laundering.
A system of subjective and objective rules have been formulated to identify unusual transactions which must be reported to the central reporting center where the transaction information is collected, registered, processed, and analyzed, in order the determine whether the data may be important to prevent and detect money laundering.



Basel Committee on Banking Supervision
The bank acknowledges that as a going concern it must keep itself abreast of the latest international developments on banking and its supervision. Accordingly, the bank follows closely the recommendations of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.
The committee formulates broad supervisory standards and guidelines and recommends statements of best practices. The Capital Adequacy Framework, Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision, and Core Principles Methodology, all have been fully-or partly adopted by the central banks of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. Accordingly, these standards and guidelines have also been applied to the bank. Furthermore, we continuously seek to adopt new statements of best practices wherever applicable. For more information on the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, please visit www.bis.com (Bank for International Settlements)