full House of Assembly debate on the desirability of setting up the First Citizens' Bank. The situation comes about because the Private Bills Committee of the House turned down Andre Heyliger's plans for the bank, plans which would have had to be approved by the full House.

Mr. Heyliger's plans have been well known for a long time so they have not come as any surprise to the mixture of United Bermuda Party and PLP parliamentarians who comprise the Private Bills Committee. It came as a great surprise to us when the bill was not allowed to proceed to the full House where it would, at least, have been openly debated.

We do understand the concerns for stable banking in Bermuda. It is clear that the committee would have consulted both the Ministry of Finance and the Bermuda Monetary Authority before reaching a decision. We do not know, but it may be that they had reservations about the ability of a new bank to succeed in the face of competition from two giants and the Bermuda Commercial Bank.

It is Mr. Heyliger's stated aim to give Bermudians a choice in banking and to be in the forefront of domestic banking. The Commercial Bank has already left the domestic banking business because it found that it could not profit from such banking and it is no secret that both the Bank of Bermuda and the Bank of Butterfield make the great majority of their money elsewhere, despite ever increasing retail banking charges.

The Monetary Authority's advice to the Private Bills Committee probably accepted responsibility for protecting Bermudians and their savings and deposits from bank failures and there may well have been a decision that the proposed First Citizens' Bank was under-capitalised or that the way it was planned made it a risky proposal. There might also have been fears that once Mr. Heyliger obtained his bank charter he would follow the example set by Sir John Swan and become rich by selling the charter to one of the big two.

Consideration must have been given to the failure of other deposit taking operations, notably Telecheck. Granting a bank licence seems to us to imply that the operation is safe and the last thing Bermuda needs to see is depositors or investors, especially hard working small depositors, taking losses.

However, Mr. Heyliger would have an overseas banking partner which is not unknown to other local banks, and he might well be able to attract community support especially since the big two are rather cavalier about how they serve their retail customers. It has been clear for a long time that they are not very interested in small accounts. Thus their banking hall service is so slow.

We do not know if Mr. Heyliger deserved his bank or not but there must have been ways to ensure that he was properly capitalised, that the customers were protected, that the Citizens' Bank did not open without experienced senior personnel and that the overseas partner was beyond reproach. The opublic wil never knwo if any of these qwuestions were answered and we therefore find it very strange that the bank bill was not openly debated. We also think it was an unwise decision for the United Bermuda Party to make in an election year.

Mr. Heyliger and Mr. Bascome should keep pushing.