Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Acting CEO of the Territorial Bank of American Samoa, Owen Peery and Director of the Office of Financial Institutions Tuasivi John Marsh were called to the House of Representatives on Monday, October 2, 2023 to provide an update on issues at TBAS. 

Members of the Commerce Committee, chaired by Tualauta faipule Samuel Ioka Ale Meleisea, all took turns asking questions about audit updates of the bank, and its financial position. 

Before questioning and opening remarks, Commissioner Marsh gave a disclaimer that since the departure of former TBAS CEO David Buehler, the audit of Fiscal Year 2021-2022 is seven months past due and that the Fiscal Year 2022- 2023 is also past due, but they are working diligently to materialize the audit reports and they stated that the financial statements of TBAS are strong. 

Marsh then backed up the newly selected acting CEO and said that with Peery at the helm, they will have better communication between the Office of Financial Institutions and TBAS management. 

Acting CEO Peery then gave an account on the update of audit reports, saying, “The bank's unaudited financial statements for both fiscal years show that the bank is in a strong financial position.” He also stated that financial statements still need to be audited to verify the accuracy of the unaudited statements.

In addition, the acting CEO reported that the unaudited Fiscal Year 2023 shows a surplus for TBAS. 

Peery further divulged to the Commerce Committee that a new auditor was hired because the former auditor would not compromise on performing a parallel audit of both fiscal years, 2022 and 2023.

“The bank’s deposits currently total $283 million, with the loan portfolio sitting at $30 million, which tells us that TBAS is sufficiently capitalized,” he said. 

With that said, Peery also told the Committee members that with his appointment as the acting CEO, there will be accountability and transparency, along with new direction in running TBAS and that with new management in place, plans for the audit of fiscal year 2022 are now in motion. 

Faipule Fiu John Saelua asked about the status of having TBAS FDIC insured. “The last time TBAS met with FDIC, the communication was that FDIC was not in a position to accept an application from the bank as long as the government had a controlling position in the bank,” Peery responded. 

He said, “We asked FDIC to clarify if it means majority ownership or minority ownership and the response was that if the government maintains a portion of control, FDIC would not accept the application from TBAS, but would not preclude the American Samoa government from having minority ownership position in the bank.” 

 “The control prong is the key piece in FDIC’s determination in having TBAS insured,” concluded Peery. 

Faipule Fa’auifono Vaitautolu then inquired about having one ATM in Fitiuta, when the majority of the population lives in Faleasao, Luma, and Siufaga. He asked Peery whether he was aware of that situation. 

The acting CEO responded that “there is currently one ATM in Fitiuta, and we have two merchant terminal machines.

“We are looking to place more ATM machines across all three Manu’a islands and to date, we’ve not had very much luck getting local business owners to engage with us and go through the application process to get the terminals in their locations.” 

Peery did point out that “the biggest issue at this point for them was not the cost of getting the ATMs deployed, but that the more pressing issue was the transportation to and from the islands.”

He emphasized that the nature of the travel calls for them to send out two employees to service ATMs that contain cash.

 “Because of the large amount of funds that the employees are retrieving, we need to send the employee’s to Manu’a on the morning of the day they’re sent out, and we need them to return in the evening right away,” said Peery. 

Other issues discussed in the hearing were loan fees, long lines at the ATMs, and the line of credit that was funded by ARPA.

Details on these issues in Samoa News later this week.