Is There No One Who Can Regulate Banks and Insurance Companies?

[Nizam Mohamed]

Nizam Mohamed 374-8354 nizam_mo...@yahoo.com
Water Reserve Road,

La Fillette Village, via Blanchisseuse,

PO Box 3805, Upper Santa Cruz.

May 8th, 2026

 

The Honourable Davendranath Tancoo

The Minister of Finance

Finance Building

Eric Williams Financial Complex

Independence Square

Port of Spain 612 9700

 

Is There No One Who Can Regulate Banks and Insurance Companies?

 

For the fiscal year ended September 30^th, 2025, FCB made a profit after tax of $990 million TTD. Profit before tax: $1.365 billion TTD.

Rather than ask the question I asked in the first line of my attached letter to FCB’s Chairman, I will instead state the answer – there is no one who can effectively regulate banks and insurance companies. Direct experience has taught me that it all amounts to a system of shameless sham, greed and parasitism. A concerned, competent regulator would never allow FCB – a government-controlled bank – to exploit me the way FCB exploited and exploits me. But no one is concerned or competent, no one cares. Indeed, no has the will to do anything – so there is no way.

I resist alluding to Shakespeare, but the spirit moves me: cry “money!” and let slip the petty pot hounds of banking. From its overtly insulting, racist and dehumanizing personal treatment of me to its exploitive, harsh, unnecessary terms and conditions of its loans, I see no duty whatsoever – fiduciary, Quincecare or otherwise – fulfilled here. What happened to me at the hands of FCB – the branch closing with I alone in it and still being ignored; evading a number system to bypass me for service; blaming me for its failures; condescending to and insulting me, to name only a few – GOES BEYOND SUPERLATIVES. IT IS INSANITY: AN INSANITY OF GREED GENERATED BY WEAK REGULATORS.

I write to you because no one has responded to my attached letter of complaint (October 30th, 2025, to the Group Chief Executive Officer, First Citizens Bank.) It is business as usual.

I therefore ask that you use your authority and influence to resolve the complaints listed in that letter and quoted at the end of this letter.

They are all singing for their supper, they are all collecting State and other salaries under pretense of work – egotistic, elitist, emasculated, cosmetic, unproductive posturers. No banker or insurer ever did a hard day’s work of manual labour in his/her life – that is why they cannot empathize with a self-made man like me – that is the reason they are so quick to divide your money among themselves, like corbeau feeding off the dead.

FCB continues to deduct money from my pension to pay insurers – and continues to allow one of these insurers to impulsively raise the premium. That is a greedy impulse – obscene, ugly greed dressed up as officialdom in expensive suits.

For the fiscal year ended September 30^th, 2025, FCB made a profit after tax of $990 million TTD. Profit before tax: $1.365 billion TTD: harsh, unnecessary fees contributed to that greedy profit.

On January 07^th, 2026, two assistant managers, Ms. Etienne and Ms. Tannis, and a loans officer from FCB’s Park/Henry Streets branch, eventually called me. A conference call.

Essentially, they apologized for the outrageous, customer-hostile treatment continuously meted out to me by their staff, yet they offered no reparation – financial or otherwise. They also tried to convince me that FCB’s denial of my Christmas (Christmas 2025) loan was for my benefit: a Christmas loan it gleefully advertised.

The tragic reality is that these FCB executives simply do not care. It’s all a cosmetic, public relations game of patronization and condescension. No matter what is articulated – whether in writing or verbally or in other way – it is zombie-like greed that dominates every interaction.

What FCB preaches is diametrically opposite to what it practices. In this sense, it is much like almost every other bank, organization and individual.

Let me remind you, Sir, this was no small, petty infringement of customer service norms. This was discrimination and customer-contempt of biblical proportions – unworthy of any financial institution. An example that is undeniable and indefensible is the incident where they closed the bank – not realizing that I was still inside – and still refused to attend to me (described on page 3.)

Moreover, FCB still cannot explain why and how it allowed a security officer to bring a young woman to alter the order of the line: a security officer who, when I complained, insulting told me that, “yuh old and like yuh need sex.” He just got his wrists slapped. What is incredibly damning to FCB is that this is just the tip of the iceberg of irrational, counter-productive treatment.

You can quote fiduciary duties, you can quote codes of ethics, you can quote the Bible, the Gita and the Qur’an – you can quote from now till kingdom come – all quotes slip off these greedy corbeaus like water off a duck’s back.

At the root of all this unfettered greed is the regulators: emasculated, casual, unconcerned, complacent, cosmetic, elitist, overpaid regulators. They are similar to the bankers and insurers. Rather than address these expensive, unnecessary fees and requirements, FCB instead continues to allow insurance companies to unilaterally and greedily raise their fees. On one occasion, a manager extended herself to exclaim to me, “and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it, Nizam!” Government and bank executives create policies and practices that more pauperize the poor – and when you complain – they claim that that is just how it is and that they can do nothing about it.

Obviously, they did it, so they can undo it.  It is an unholy greed that paralyses them and prevents them from acting. To be sure, though, they undo everything that is beneficial to you and costly and bothersome to them. For example, FCB once had a separate teller line for pensioners – now it does not. But not only should FCB have a separate line for pensioners, it should also have separate policies and practices for them.  

For the fiscal year ended September 30^th, 2025, FCB made a profit after tax of $990 million TTD. Profit before tax: $1.365 billion TTD – pensioners contributed to that fat profit.

Allow me to end with the list of requests that I made to FCB’s Chairman. Neither he nor any of his subordinates addressed any. I therefore ask that you, Honourable Minister, kindly try and address these.

1. That the racist, arbitrary, hostile, inefficient, counter-productive behaviour of this branch be thoroughly aired, investigated and addressed. “Racist” is the only adjective I can use to describe what continually happened to me at your branch. Contrary to the policy of your bank – or of any financial institution – no one ever greets you with a smile. Your subordinates are smug, slow, inefficient, complacent and at times even insolent. Sir, which HR executive hired these smug, hostile employees?
2. That the insurances attached to my small mortgage loan be cancelled. Failing that, at least cancel the Norman/Gabriel home insurance.
3. That Norman Gabriel insurers be asked how and why they immediately and unilaterally increased the premium on my home insurance when they obtained the account.
4. That FCB, boasting of its home-grown nature, make easier the opening of new savings accounts or the reactivating of dormant ones. Having worked for both Republic Bank and Royal Bank, I can confidently state that it is irrational and counterproductive to require so much criteria, to make it so difficult for poor, vulnerable people to open an account. Whatever risk the bank foresees, and I can see none, will be nullified by the gains of more happy customers and more money being deposited.
5. That the branch be made to justify why it compelled me to consolidate a mortgage loan with a vehicle loan, thereby increasing the term of the mortgage loan by two years and outrageously increasing the amount of the insurances.

a.       That the branch revisit and undo this consolidation.

b.      In undoing the consolidation, that the branch reset the mortgage loan to its original terms and conditions. This means that as of December, 2025, I will have four years instalments remaining on a ten-year mortgage loan.

c.       That on this reset mortgage, the branch removes the requirement of the home insurance and reduces the premium on my life insurance: the principal balance on the loan will now be smaller. This move should release funds to finance the loan instalments on my vehicle loan.

d.      That the branch calculates the dollar difference between the reset mortgage loan and the current consolidated mortgage loan – instalments began in January 2024 – and place that amount towards the vehicle loan. Original mortgage: $2,649.81 instalment + $500 life insurance without the home insurance = $3,149.81. Current consolidated mortgage $3,950.00 instalment + $700.00 life insurance + $500.00 home insurance = $5,150.00. The difference: $2,000.00 @ month since January 2024 = $44,000.00 – this should go towards the vehicle loan. My aim is to avoid the greedy, exploitive – quite unnecessary – insurances on the consolidated loan. The vehicle loan will have no such parasitic insurances. Why nickel-and-dime a pensioner to death?

 

May I remind you, Honourable Minister, that I will eventually pay $115,000.00 IN INSURANCES ON A $270SOMETHING THOUSAND-DOLLAR MORTGAGE LOAN.  Essentially, I will pay approximately 40% of the principal in insurances. This is incredible greed and exploitation. Both insurances should be my idea – not non-negotiable bank criteria. FCB already cost me much money to mortgage my home.

EVEN A LOAN SHARK IS NOT AS GREEDY, CALLOUS OR EXPLOITIVE.

Regarding these parasitic, corbeau-like bank executives, regulator executives and government executives: how many prestige cars can you simultaneously drive, how many houses can you simultaneously occupy, how many mistresses can you simultaneously keep, empower and make love to? Profit above all else – to what end? A judgment of Scriptural proportion awaits you – Biblical, Qur’anic, Vedic. You can escape worldly and material consequences, but nowhere in this universe will you escape the judgment of the God in whom you believe.

They strain at gnats and swallow camels to avoid their duties and obligations – to manifest their unholy whimsicalities and indulgences. Yet, nothing happens to them; yet, they continue to prosper – while they suffer everyone relevant to them.

For the fiscal year ended September 30^th, 2025, FCB made a profit after tax of $990 million TTD. Profit before tax: $1.365 billion TTD – partly by exploiting the poor, the vulnerable and the powerless. With my broke back against the wall, FCB demanded that I pay these insurances or else, no loan for me. Not the exorbitant interest, fees and charges – the insurances.   

Like a paralyzed, abused spouse too demoralized to leave a relationship for fear of jumping from the frying pan into the fire, or too exhausted even at the thought of searching for another mate, I am similarly demoralized and exhausted at the thought of transferring all to another bank.

I am a tax-paying citizen of this Republic, I am a fee-paying, long-standing customer of FCB. I was taught in my post graduate Diploma in Public Relations that everything involving tax dollars is my concern. Similarly, both my pensions are deposited in FCB and my million-dollar home is mortgaged to FCB – all for a two hundred and something thousand dollars loan. Consequently, every policy and practice of FCB are my concern. However, public executives, bank executives and regulator executives want me to pay my taxes, pay my fees, deposit my money and shut my mouth. I must sit back and allow myself to be exploited, allow my blood to be sucked dry by financial vampires.  

To those who offer advice on how to write, or what to write, or if to write at all – I say this, get thee behind me Satan. They are as gutless, opportunistic, greedy, amoral, posturing, emasculated and soulless as the bank executives and the regulator executives. They will not lend a finger to help you in a time of need, but speedily offer you the hand of advice when you complain. As with every element of my life, no one has lifted a finger to help me in my complaint of FCB.     

Please resolve the complaints listed above in 1 to 5 – especially that the insurances attached to my small mortgage loan be cancelled.

Thank you and I look forward to your response.       

Yours Respectfully,

Nizam Mohamed, Dip. (PR), AA (IR), BA (English), PG Dip (Pub. Admin.), MA (Mass Comm.)

Cc: The Prime Minister, The AG, The Minister of Finance, The Chairman FCB, Shankar Bidaisee, The Financial Ombudsman, the Supervisor of Banks, the Governor of the Central Bank, The Branch Manager, Park Street, RBC, Republic Bank and other related organizations and individuals.