First Nations Bank expands
Two staff training at Iqaluit branch this week
Daron Letts
Northern News Services
Published Monday, February 10, 2014
QAMANITTUAQ/BAKER LAKE
First Nations Bank is preparing to open its first community banking centre in Baker Lake later this month.
Two staff from Baker Lake are being trained at the First Nations Bank branch in Iqaluit this week. They will run the new First Nation Bank community banking centre opening in the Baker Lake Arctic Co-op later this month. Two more community banking centres are scheduled to open in Pond Inlet and Kugluktuk by summer. - Myles Dolphin/NNSL photo |
The chartered bank, which opened its flagship Nunavut branch in Iqaluit in 2010, is in the middle of training two staff hired from the community, said John Wolfe, assistant manager of the Iqaluit branch, which employs five full-time staff and one casual worker.
The community banking centre will occupy about 150-square-feet of the community's Arctic Co-op grocery store. The project is a joint venture between the bank and the grocery chain.
Two more community banking centres are planned for coming months, first Pond Inlet at the end of April, and then Kugluktuk
"Our objective is to get them open and up and running and as quickly as possible," said Wolfe, who will serve as the community banking manager for the centres in Baker Lake and Pond Inlet.
The bank has been working with the co-op this month to provide financial literacy workshops in Baker Lake, Wolfe said.
"We're excited to be part of that process," he said, adding many adults and youth in small Arctic communities have never opened a bank account before. "We will be able to reach the youth and allow them to have an understanding of the importance of saving and budgeting and planning. This allows us to afford them a benefit that perhaps was not available in past years."
As for the banking hours for the Baker Lake community banking centre, that is still being worked out, according to First Nations Bank chairperson and CEO Keith Martell.
"We haven't pinned down the hours yet," he said. "That will depend on community demand."
Martell anticipates a soft opening for the Baker Lake community banking centre within the last two weeks of February, he said.
"It's a community that's not served today by any financial institution, so the need was there. We've looked at the whole territory. We had an intent to open these (community banking centres) right from time we went into Nunavut," he said. "Once (residents) see the opportunities go in, that's the real demand that we're interested in. We're definitely excited about seeing these facilities in operation."
The bank's first NWT branch is scheduled to open in downtown Yellowknife by summer, he added. First Nations Bank is 80 per cent aboriginal-owned and more than three-quarters of its employees are aboriginal.
