Come on. That's a total stretch. While you may have a dislike for Minnis, this has nothing to do with him. Canadian banks have been pulling back their operations in the Bahamas long before Minnis.

Just look at Grand Bahama. For years people have to wait over an hour to get served, and Scotia would not put one more branch in Freeport. They even moved out their system to Trinidad.

It's about them milking our country not about what Minnis may or nay not have done.

Correct. The Canadian banks have been paring back their Out Islands operations for years.

@moncurcool: Just think for a moment about the very telling last sentence in your post immediately above. Then ask yourself: "What has Minnis done since May 2017 to put any 'milk' into our country for the Bahamian people?" Answer: "Nothing, absolutely nada!" Instead our very corrupt, incompetent, arrogant, nasty and vindictive PM has turned the taps wide open for corrupt and greedy foreign investors to milk our country like they have never done before. Wake up man.

The telling comment in my post is that you are trying to make the implication that Minnis is responsible for what Scotiabank in doing when in fact this has been happening prior to Minnis.

2+2 is not equal to 5 just becasue you say so. Line up the facts. Give the evidence and facts that Minnis is responsible. But don't allow dislike to leading to sprouting facts that do not line up

I wouldn't blame Minnis for this one, these closures are nothing new. RBC had a big wave of them a while ago. The banks only care about one thing, their bottom line, and it is becoming increasing harder to justify keeping less trafficked physical locations open in the era of online banking. Unfortunately, the less-tech savy seniors end up suffering the most.

You are saying all the Canadian banks will reopen all their branches if the PLP was back in power? Seriously?

Good. this is in keeping with Bahamalands move to Bahamian only. Scotia caught the drift and self deported.

Have you ever heard: "No man is an island, entire of itself."

Another version of it goes: "No nation of islands, entire of themselves."

I have heard it of course. But unfortunately most people "here" haven't.

Yep, things are now so bad that even the foreign banks can't find anymore 'milk' for the taking from our country, even though Minnis has turned all the taps wide open that used to provide a bountiful flow of milk.

This is just another ongoing example of our refusal to develop our indigenous banking and credit union sectors ........... while depending on Canadian banks to service our many islands. Commonwealth Bank or the main Credit Unions have not seen fit to expand beyond the urban centres .......... so, we cannot depend on the local private banking sector.

Then there are the webshops and FX outflows ................. and that is another serious concern.

Even though our tax payers' monies go to bail out a handful of PEPs at Bank of The Bahamas, now is the time to use this national "asset" to drive the banking needs of Government departments and civil service and get BOB out of the fiscal muck that its in.

Either that, or open up and modernize the Post Office banking system to replace the Canadians.

Its hard to develop banking without scale.

How may billions in profits have these foreign banks repatriated over the last 50 years? The solution to this disenfranchisement of our family islands is simply the central bank should require as a condition of obtaining their business license that each of the major commercial banks have at least one physical bank in one of our less populated family islands. Also would Bahamians please whenever possible patronize our Bahamian banks.

How many "Bahamian" banks do we have??? ........... After all, is it not Scotiabank(Bahamas)Ltd?????? .......... But no 242 heart, soul or conscience.

We have three 100% owned Bahamian banks.

That is the nature of business. Profits.
To have good profits you need a good customer base, aka numbers.
The obsession with driving away potential investors aka foreigners is not good for business in a country with a relativity small population base, and its even worse in islands with small populations. Anyway with a digital economy, it should be no big deal.

The scary fact is not that modern society is rapidly changing but that the only way to prepare for these changes appears to be to learn how to fish.

There may soon be a huge job crisis in The Bahamas and elsewhere, with Multinational Enterprises consolidating operations into a few technologically savy countries and using solely digital platforms to service overseas clients elsewhere.

CoronaVirus has sped up the complete digitization of the global economy, and, likewise, its transformation into a mostly jobless, automated, downloadable App.

Complete digitization is cutting out the middleman, satellite office branches in countries. Soon, international banks, such as Scotia, could have no physical presence in The Bahamas. Likewise, a manufacturer in China could sell directly to consumers in The Bahamas, without the need for a physical wholesaler or retail location.

Where will the jobs come from? Learn to fish.

If we were to look at First World countries, how are their banking regimes set up??? .......... rural France, UK, USA, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Canada???? ................ Are there NO banks in these countries????

Is it totally unreasonable to expect that banking institutions exist in our rural areas????

In the next couple years, I anticipate a complete eradication of cash. All tansactions will occur with phones. If there is no cash, there will be very little need for a physical bank. Banks as we know them may, very well, be a thing of the past and go extinct altogether.

Yep, and the great life in The Bahamas that we all once knew is rapidly coming to a calamitous end. Good luck banking in a cashless society without affordable and reliable electricity and internet services. But none of that will be of any concern when we have a serious shortage of fresh drinking water.

Good luck with that the next time a hurricane hits and the power and internet is down for days or weeks and with a Dorian class storm for over a year in some places. For months after Dorian cold hard cash was king.

THAT IS WHY THIS STUPID IDEA TO GO CASHLESS IN THE FAMILY ISLANDS IS UNREASONABLE, RUSHED AND UNSUSTAINABLE ......... BASED ON OUR CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC REALITIES.