JN Bank relocates in Linstead
JN BANK has relocated its branch in Linstead, St Catherine, to a more spacious and technologydriven establishment at 26 King Street, consistent with its promise to ensure convenience and comfort for its members, while positioning its operation for growth in the quaint northern St Catherine town.
Business at the new location, situated across from KFC and the tow n’s bus park, commenced on March 19.
Janice Robinson Longmore, chief operations for JN Bank, said the relocation is part of the bank ’s strategic objective modernise branch layout and facilities, improve service deliver y through the branch network and to ensure comfort and convenience for all of its members, who visit its branches.
EXPANSION
“Some of our locations have outgrown their space; and, therefore, we have been looking carefully at these branches, with a view to expanding or relocating our services to adequately meet the needs of our members,” she said, citing the recent relocation of the JN Bank branch in Barbican, St Andrew last September.
Established i n 1981 at its former 27 King Street address, the JN Bank Linstead branch has experienced a doubling of its membership during the past 36 years.
The new branch offers more parking spaces for its members and employees, in addition to a secured 24-hour Express facility, which houses two ATMs, one of
POINTING TO his own Dream Weekend festival, which showed that the average person spends US$350 per day, Kamal Bankay, entertainment entrepreneur, is convinced that with strategic investments and the right support, Jamaica can experience tremendous economic development through the entertainment industry.
The businessman and director of Xodus Carnival, in discussing the business side of entertainment, said events always create avenues which benefit a number of sectors in society.
“When the J TB( Jamaica Tourist Board) did a survey in 2017 looking at the per person spend at Dream, they said that the average person spend 350 US per day. There are about 15,000 persons in Negril, so when you do the calculation it is significant. The economic benefits are huge,” he said.
“Where it gets interesting is as it relates to the multipliers. You have to pay for your generators, you have to hire a security company, you might be including some sort of food item during the event, so we are looking at the food industry. You are touching maybe 20 different industries when you are putting on an event ,” he continued.
‘LOTS OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY’
The businessman added, “Let’s take Dream Weekend, for example, the consumer is spending on a ride to get to Negril, half of the money they spend is spent on hotels, then you have the bus drivers who take them from their hotels to the event, so there is a whole lot of economic activity.”
Bankay also noted that there could be better collaboration between the formal business sector and the entertainment industry.
“The formal business sector doesn’ t understand the entertainment industry, in my estimation, and I believe there is a
lot of work that needs to be done from the entertainment industry side to make the formal industry understand and appreciate the craft. There are those in the industry who don’t understand how impactful their products are,” he said.
He advised youngsters wanting to venture in entertainment that they must be willing to make sacrifices and be strategic in order to see major success.
“At 21, I was hosting mega events catering to 5,000 –6,000 people. I’m not seeing any 21-year-olds right now doing that, which is unfortunate because it’s not for a lack of us publishing our stories and highlighting what we do.
“You can’t develop that major product unless you dedicate your entire life to it and make sacrifices. You are talking about working up to 18 hours per day. I believe that until we work with the universities a little bit more to formalise these programmes, there will not be that major development of the industry,” he declared.