Alan Thompson's banking career has taken him from the white beaches of California, where he grew up, to the desert sands of the Middle East and on to our pink shores.

Alan Thompson, president and CEO of the Bank of Butterfield, took up his new post at the end of January, after five years working in the Middle East. There he was head one of the region's top financial institutions, Riyadh Bank in Saudi Arabia, with total assets of $18.5 billion.

In total, Mr. Thompson has 30 years of industry experience behind him having worked from 1972 to 1995 at First Interstate Bancorp in the US and in Singapore. Sitting in the Bank of Butterfield's fifth floor executive offices, Mr. Thompson, an American, spoke with The Royal Gazette on how happy he was to have made the move to Bermuda and what is ahead for the Island's second largest bank.

Although one might expect change with a change of management, Mr. Thompson said there won't be any radical changes or shake-ups at the bank.

Mr. Thompson added those would be unnecessary: "The bank is in good shape so there is no reason or need for radical change at this point in time," he said.

Up to this year the bank had logged 14 consecutive quarters of growth. That track record was broken in the first quarter of 2002, but

Mr. Thompson said the bank had still performed well: "The return on equity in the 14 quarters of growth was 25 percent. In the January to March quarter our return on equity was 20.8 percent. That is down from previous quarters, but looking at it on an international scale it still puts us on a very high performance level. And the primary reason it was down was lower interest rates globally."

Despite ruling out sweeping change, Mr. Thompson said some change would be the natural result of the bank's evolution: "As time goes on and the external and internal environments evolve, there will be changes but I don't predict radical changes."

Despite his assertion that it will be business as usual at the bank, Mr. Thompson said there are certain areas - such as customer service - that will be constantly under assessment. Even on that score, Mr. Thompson said customer feedback indicated the bank had come a long way in recent years with customer service and that no "systemic problem areas" had been identified.

Will the bank follow the Bank of Bermuda's lead in listing on a major stock exchange?

Mr. Thompson is not ruling out the possibility, but he is not saying the bank will either. The new CEO pointed out that the bank is already listed on the Bermuda Stock Exchange and also has a secondary listing in the Caymans.

But following the Bank of Bermuda's listing on American exchange Nasdaq earlier this year, the question is whether of not the Bank of Butterfield will follow suit.

Mr. Thompson told The Royal Gazette: "I am going to hedge a little bit on this. I will say continue to evaluate our options. And we have announced that we are changing our year end from June 30 to December 31 as one of the prerequisites to list.

"We will watch the performance and activities of the Bank of Bermuda. And quite honestly there are pluses and minuses. And it is not clear at this point whether it is beneficial for our shareholders and our customers. We will continue to evaluate," Mr. Thomson concluded.

Although Mr. Thompson said there were no incidents targeting Americans or Europeans during his time in Riyadh - a concern after September 11 and with the war being waged in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda group - but in recent weeks tensions have resulted in a car bomb in Riyadh killing an expatriate banker.

His move out of the politically charged region must also be a relief for his wife and three daughters. And besides, it no longer takes Mr. Thompson a 17 hour flight to get home to his family.

Of course, Mr. Thompson's "commute" home to see his family, who had remained in the US, was not daily but every five to six weeks. Now his wife, Susan and youngest daughters Elizabeth 13, and Anne, 10 have joined him on the Island.

Meanwhile, Mr. Thompson's said his eldest daughter Sarah, 22, is an up and coming actress in Los Angeles. Although busy filming movies and television shows - Mr. Thompson, a visibly proud father, said Sarah had had parts in several movies and in such TV shows as Boston Public from writer David Kelly of The Practice and Ally McBeal fame - Sarah will be visiting her family in Bermuda this month after she wraps up filming on a movie.