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List of
Banks in the Caribbean
List of Banks in Sint Maarten
The Island Territory of Sint Maarten (Dutch:
Eilandgebied Sint Maarten) is one of five island territories (Eilandgebieden)
of the Netherlands Antilles, encompassing the southern half of the
island of Saint Martin. At the 2001 Netherlands Antilles census, the
population of the Eilandgebied was 30,594. The official estimate of
population as at 1 Jan 2009 was 50,300 for a population density of 1,965
inhabitants per km². The official languages are Dutch, English and
Papiamento; a local English-based creole dialect is also spoken.
Sint Maarten borders the French overseas collectivity of Saint-Martin,
which occupies the northern half of the island.
On 10 October 2010, the Netherlands Antilles will be dissolved and Sint
Maarten will become an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the
Netherlands.
Bank v.d. Nederlandse Antillen
Address: W.J.A. Nisbeth Road 25
Phone: (599) 542-3520
Fax: (599) 542-4307
Barclay's Bank PLC
Address: Frontstreet 29
Phone: (599) 542-3511 / (599) 542-2491 / (599) 542-2567
Fax: (599) 542-4531
Chase Manhattan Bank NA
Address: E.C. Richardson St.
Phone: (599) 542-3801 / (599) 545-4205 / (599) 545-4305
Fax: (599) 542-3692
FirstCaribbean International Bank Ltd.
Address: 38 Back Street
Phone: (599) 542-3511
Fax: (599) 542-4531
Orco Bank
Address: Union Road 139 F, Union Plaza - Cole Bay
Phone: (599) 544-4744
Fax: (599) 544-4745
RBTT Bank Sint Maarten N.V.
Address: A.C. Cannegieter St.
Phone: (599) 542-5908
Fax: (599) 542-5964
Scotiabank
Address: Backstreet 54, Phillipsburg
Phone: (599) 542-3317 / (599) 542-2262
Fax: (599) 542-2435
SFT Bank
Address: Airport Road 30A
Phone: (599) 545-2070 / (599) 545-2071
Fax: (599) 545-2073
The Windward Islands Bank Ltd.
Address: Clem Labega Square, Phillipsburg
Phone: (599) 542-2313
Fax: (599) 542-4761
History
See also: History of Saint Martin
In 1493, during Christopher Columbus' second voyages to the West Indies,
upon first sighting the island he named it Isla de San Martín after
Saint Martin of Tours because it was November 11, St. Martin Day.
However, though he claimed it as a Spanish territory, Columbus never
landed there, and Spain made the settlement of the island a low priority.
The French and Dutch, on the other hand, both coveted the island. While
the French wanted to colonize the islands between Trinidad and Bermuda,
the Dutch found San Martín a convenient halfway point between their
colonies in New Amsterdam (present day New York) and Brazil. With few
people inhabiting the island, the Dutch easily founded a settlement
there in 1631, erecting Fort Amsterdam as protection from invaders. Jan
Claeszen Van Campen became its first governor, and soon thereafter the
Dutch East India Company began their salt mining operations. French and
British settlements sprang up on the island as well. Taking note of
these successful colonies and wanting to maintain their control of the
salt trade, the Spanish now found St. Martin much more appealing. The
Eighty Years' War which had been raging between Spain and the
Netherlands provided further incentive to attack.
Spanish forces captured Saint Martin from the Dutch in 1633, seizing
control and driving most or all of the colonists off the island. At
Point Blanche, they built Old Spanish Fort to secure the territory.
Although the Dutch retaliated in several attempts to win back St.
Martin, they failed. Fifteen years after the Spanish conquered the
island, the Eighty Years' War ended. Since they no longer needed a base
in the Caribbean and St. Martin barely turned a profit, the Spanish lost
their inclination to continue defending it. In 1648, they deserted the
island.
With St. Martin free again, both the Dutch and the French jumped at the
chance to re-establish their settlements. Dutch colonists came from St.
Eustatius, while the French came from St. Kitts. After some initial
conflict, both sides realized that neither would yield easily.
Preferring to avoid an all-out war, they signed the Treaty of Concordia
in 1648, which divided the island in two. During the treaty's
negotiation, the French had a fleet of naval ships off shore, which they
used as a threat to bargain more land for themselves. In spite of the
treaty, relations between the two sides were not always cordial. Between
1648 and 1816, conflicts changed the border sixteen times. In the end,
the French came out ahead with 21 square miles (54 km2) to the 16 square
miles (41 km2) of the Dutch side.
Although the Spanish had been the first to import slaves to the island,
their numbers had been few. But with the new cultivation of cotton,
tobacco, and sugar, mass numbers of slaves were imported to work on the
plantations. The slave population quickly grew larger than that of the
land owners. Subjected to cruel treatment, slaves staged rebellions, and
their overwhelming numbers made them impossible to ignore. On July 12,
1848, the French abolished slavery on their side of St. Martin. The
Dutch followed suit fifteen years later.
20th century
After abolition of slavery, plantation culture declined and the island's
economy suffered. In 1939, St. Martin received a major boost when it was
declared a duty-free port. The Dutch side began focusing on tourism in
the 1950s, with the French side following suit two decades later.
Because of being split up into a Dutch and a French part, the tourist
boom was heavier on Sint Maarten than on the surrounding islands. Its
Princess Juliana International Airport became one of the busiest in the
Eastern Caribbean. For much of this period, Sint Maarten was governed by
business tycoon Claude Wathey of the Democratic Party.
The island's demographics changed dramatically during this period as
well. The island's population increased from a mere 5,000 people to
around 80,000 people in the mid-1990s. Immigration from the neighbouring
Lesser Antilles, Curaçao, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, but also from
the United States, Europe, and Asia turned the native population into a
minority.
Sint Maarten became an "island territory" (eilandgebied in Dutch) of the
Netherlands Antilles in 1983. Before that date Saint Martin was part of
the island territory of the Windward Islands, together with Saba and
Sint Eustatius. The status of an island territory entails considerable
autonomy summed up in the Island Regulation of the Netherlands Antilles.
The island territory of Sint Maarten was ruled by an island council, an
executive council, and an administrator (Dutch: gezaghebber) appointed
by the Dutch Crown.
On September 5, 1995, Hurricane Luis severely pounded the islands
causing numerous damages 35 years to the day after Hurricane Donna.
In 1994, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and France signed the
Franco-Dutch treaty on Saint Martin border controls, which allows for
joint Franco-Dutch border controls on so-called "risk flights". After
some delay, the treaty was ratified in November 2006 in the Netherlands,
and subsequently entered into force on 1 August 2007. Though the treaty
is now in force, its provisions are not yet implemented as the working
group specified in the treaty is not yet installed.
On 10 October 2010, Sint Maarten will become a separate country within
the Kingdom of the Netherlands, making it a constitutional equal partner
with Aruba, Curaçao, and the Netherlands proper.
Government and politics
The Constitution of Sint Maarten was unanimously adopted by the island
council of Sint Maarten on 21 July 2010. Elections for a new island
council were held on 17 September 2010, since the number of seats will
be increased from 11 to 15. The newly elected island council will become
the Estates of Sint Maarten on 10 October.
Eugene Holiday was appointed as the first Governor of Sint Maarten
(Dutch: gouverneur)—even though the current gezaghebber is often called
governor in English as well—by the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom
of the Netherlands in September 2010. He also will assume office on 10
October 2010.
Current composition of the island council
e • d Summary of the Sint Maarten general election results, 2010 Parties
Party leader Votes % Seats
Democratic Party (DP) Sarah Wescot-Williams 2
National Alliance (NA) William Marlin 7
United People (UP) Theo Heyliger 6
Concordia Political Alliance (CPA) Jeffrey Richardson 0
Total 15
Corruption
In 1978, the government of the Netherlands Antilles installed a Research
Committee on the Windward Islands (Dutch: Commissie van Onderzoek
Bovenwindse Eilanden) to investigate claims of corruption in the island
government. Even though the report issued by this commission was
destructive for the island government, measures were not put into place
to curb corruption, arguably because the government of the Netherlands
Antilles depended on the support of Wathey's Democratic Party in the
Estates of the Netherlands Antilles. In August 1990, the public
prosecutor of the Netherlands Antilles started an investigation into the
alleged ties between the island government of Sint Maarten and the
Sicilian Mafia, and in 1991 the Court of Audit of the Netherlands
Antilles issued a report which concluded that the island government of
Sint Maarten was ailing.
In the government and parliament of the Netherlands, the call for
measures became louder and louder. With Dutch pressure, the government
of the Netherlands Antilles installed the Pourier Commission tasked with
investigating the state of affairs of the island government of Sint
Maarten in December 1991. Its report concluded that the island was in a
severe financial crisis, that rules of democratic decision-making were
continuously broken, and that the island government constituted an
oligarchy. In short, the island government failed completely according
to the report. After long negotiations, the Kingdom government enacted
an Order-in-Council for the Kingdom (Dutch: Algemene Maatregel van
Rijksbestuur) in early 1993, placing Sint Maarten under direct
supervision by the Kingdom. Although originally meant for one year, the
Order-in-Council for the Kingdom was eventually extended until 1 March
1996.
Though much has changed since, allegations of criminal activities
continue to plague Sint Maarten. In 2004, the Minister of Justice of the
Netherlands Antilles asked the Scientific Research and Documentation
Centre (Dutch: Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en Documentatiecentrum
(WODC)) of the Dutch Ministry of Justice to conduct research into
organized crime in Sint Maarten. The report concluded that money
laundering and cocaine trade are widespread on Sint Maarten. It also
alleged that money from the island was used to finance terrorist
networks Hamas, its associate Holy Land Foundation, and the
Taliban.
In April 2009, former Commissioner Louie Laveist was convicted to an 18
month prison sentence by the Sint Maarten Court of First Instance, on
accounts of forgery, fraud, and bribery. He was later acquitted for
forgery and fraud by the Common Court of Justice of the Netherlands
Antilles and Aruba, but not for bribery.
Geography
Settlements
Philipsburg with 1,228 inhabitants
Lower Prince's Quarter with 8,123 inhabitants
Cul de Sac with 7,880 inhabitants
Cole Bay with 6,046 inhabitants
Upper Prince's Quarter with 4,020 inhabitants
Little Bay (Fort Amsterdam) with 2,176 inhabitants
Simpson Bay with 736 inhabitants
Lowlands with 232 inhabitants
Education
American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine (AUC), founded
in 1978, was previously located on Montserrat. Because of the eruption
of the Soufrière Hills volcano in 1995, AUC moved its campus to St.
Maarten later that year. A permanent campus was completed in 1998 in
Cupecoy.
University of St. Martin (USM) in Philipsburg. USM is an affiliate of
Johnson & Wales University.
Economy
Windward Islands Airways has its headquarters on the grounds of Princess
Juliana Airport in Sint Maarten.
See also
Caribbean portal
CourthouseSaint Martin, the Caribbean island.
Saint Martin (France), the French neighboring side of St. Maarten.
History of St. Martin, the Caribbean island.
List of Sint Maarten governors.
Culture of St. Martin, the Caribbean island.
O sweet Saint-Martin's Land (bi-national song/anthem of
Saint-Martin/Sint-Maarten)
Princess Juliana International Airport
Maho Beach -- famous viewing area for airport takeoffs and landings.
Get your own Bank account with ATM card
(Maestro/Mastercard debit card) for withdrawals with a Bank in the Caribe
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