First Nations Bank set to expand to Iqaluit

The location of the First Nations Bank of Canada’s Iqaluit branch at the Four Corners intersection is seen in a photo taken Feb. 2. The bank announced last week that the branch is scheduled to open in April. (PHOTO BY CHRIS WINDEYER)

The First Nations Bank of Canada’s long-anticipated entry into the Nunavut market will happen sometime this April.

The Saskatoon-based bank plans to open a branch in the new Kamotiq Centre building at the Four Corners intersection.

They’ve hired a manager and plan to start with a total of five employees, said Keith Martell, the bank’s chairman and chief executive officer.

“We’re hearing there’s a lot of pent up expectation for us to open,” Martell said in a telephone interview from Saskatoon.

He said the First Nations Bank was founded to help aboriginal communities gain a measure of economic independence.

“We were founded to concentrate on aboriginal markets which the aboriginal founding shareholders felt were underserved and there was no way they were participating in the potential growth the aboriginal communities and regions had,” Martell said.

The bank is 80-per cent owned by aboriginal interests, with Atuqtuarvik Corp., the investment arm of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., holding a 19 per cent stake.

It opened its sixth branch in Meadow Lake, Sask., last year, and the Iqaluit branch will make seven.

“We wanted to bring another bank north,” said Ken Toner, Atuqtuarvik’s president and CEO. “For the First Nations Bank, they were looking to expand beyond the territory that they’re in already.”

Toner said the bank will start with a hub branch in the capital and then look at expanding to three “agency” branches in smaller communities that lack branches of other banks.

But the first order of business is to get the main branch up and running before expanding, Toner said.

The agency branches will come within three years, according to an agreement between Atuqtuarvik and First Nations Bank, he added.

Toner said several communities have expressed an interest in agency branches, but the decision will be based on a market study.

Still, Toner said Baker Lake is a likely contender, with the Meadowbank gold mine scheduled to open there this year, bringing with it hundreds of jobs. But he cautioned the final decision is up to the bank.

FNBC grows gradually, Toner said, building new branches, growing their existing business and then looking to expand again.

“I think they understand the marketplace very well and with our help I think it will be a good situation for economic development,” he said.

The other impact First Nations Bank will have is to take stable, profitable business loans off the hands of Atuqtuarvik, allowing the Inuit-owned firm to put that capital back into new loans and investments into Inuit businesses, Toner said.

A company news release said First Nations Bank is coming off a record year where loans topped $160 million, up 20 per cent, and total assets grew more than 5 per cent to over $266 million.