PHILIPSBURG--After seven years of operating an automatic teller machine (ATM) in the St. Maarten Festival Village, Windward Islands Bank (WIB) removed its machine from the Village on Monday after St. Maarten Carnival Development Foundation (SCDF) requested US $15,000 from the bank to operate its ATM during the three-week Carnival period.
However, SCDF said the bank had removed its ATM more than a month after it said it would and the foundation had been unable to place an ATM from another potential partner in the facility in time for this year’s Carnival.
“WIB received a letter dated February 12, 2016, from the St. Maarten Carnival Development Foundation advising that it had received interest from potential corporate partners willing to contribute significantly to the SCDF in order to operate the ATM facility,” WIB Managing Director Derek Downes told The Daily Herald on Tuesday.
“As WIB had been there from inception, the SCDF in its letter gave WIB the first opportunity to match any offer to operate the ATM facility and requested a financial contribution of US $15,000 to operate the ATM during Carnival (three weeks). We respectfully declined such an offer and decided to move our ATM.”
WIB said it had operated the ATM at the Festival Village at a loss since it was placed there in 2009 at the opening of the Village. “While we made losses, we did this in the interest of the public who wanted to access their funds while enjoying the festivities in the Village. However, to pay such a significant fee in addition to incurring losses would have been financially irresponsible,” Downes said.
SCDF President Michael Granger said the foundation had informed WIB “out of courtesy” that it would have first opportunity to match “other offers” SCDF had been receiving to operate ATM services in the Village during Carnival.
SCDF said it first had approached the foundation that runs the Festival Village (Stichting Overheids Gebouwen (SOG)) to inquire whether WIB had an agreement with SOG to operate the ATM at the facility.
“SCDF was informed by SOG that WIB did not have an agreement to operate the ATM and, moreover, does not contribute rental fees to SOG for the space it occupied,” Granger said. “With SCDF's subsidy being slashed annually and the cost of running Carnival ballooning, the foundation is constantly faced with having to find ways to fund its almost US $700,000 budget for Carnival. As such, on February 12, WIB was asked to match the offers of other potential banking partners.”
WIB indicated on February 26 that it would be moving its ATM from the Village and probably would do so within a week. Granger said SCDF had not requested that WIB remove its ATM. He said SCDF had waited for WIB to remove its ATM and noted that had WIB done so during the week of March 1, as it had said it would, SCDF would have had time “to perhaps install an ATM from another banking partner.”
Granger said WIB had replaced its old ATM with a new one the day Carnival opened, April 14, and had not informed SCDF.
“SCDF has since learned that WIB had requested and was denied access to the Village to replenish the new ATM by SOG, since SOG could not rightfully grant access during Carnival events. Such access permission lies with the SCDF who holds the permit to operate in the Village,” Granger said, noting that WIB had not corresponded with SCDF since its February 26 correspondence.
He said WIB had removed the new ATM from the Village on April 18, four days into Carnival, and the space had been left “ugly and unoccupied.” Granger said the WIB ATM had been “actively used during the Carnival season” and noted that other institutions recognised the value of Carnival and of having an ATM in the Village and were willing to invest in this.
He assured the public that the ATM situation would be remedied for Carnival 2017.
