Opposition Senator Ashworth Azille lent qualified support to the Banking (Amendment) Bill, 2026 during Thursday's sitting of the Senate, welcoming its tighter regime for abandoned property held in commercial banks while sounding a sharp warning against any notion of channeling dormant depositors' funds into a new regional airline.
Senator Azille told the chamber that no legislation arrives perfect, pushing back on the Leader of Government Business's habit of prefacing bills as "non-contentious." Every debate, he said, is an opportunity to show how a bill "can in fact be improved and bettered in the interests of Antigua and Barbuda."
Ending a "subsidy" for commercial banks
On its face, Senator Azille said, the bill offers a far more comprehensive framework for abandoned property. He endorsed the reduction — from 15 years to 10 — of the period commercial banks may hold unclaimed funds before transferring them to the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), arguing the old arrangement amounted to "a subsidy of sorts" that propped up banks' asset bases with money that was never theirs.
Ten years, he suggested, strikes a healthy balance: more aggressive jurisdictions require handover within three to five years, but a decade gives owners and their estates adequate time to come forward. He also praised the bill's emphasis on notification, noting that many dormant accounts were opened 25 or 30 years ago by people who emigrated, or by family members who never told relatives of their existence. "A comprehensive and very aggressive notification process" is essential, he said, "so that there is no alienation of that particular asset."
A "bifurcated system" for safe deposit boxes
Senator Azille's principal structural criticism targeted what he called a bifurcated system: bank accounts are deemed abandoned after 10 years, but the contents of safe deposit boxes after only five years from the expiration of the lease.
Those boxes, he reminded the House, may hold title deeds, insurance policies, bills and family heirlooms — "many of which are really priceless and irreplaceable." Worse, he argued, the five-year trigger takes no account of whether the leaseholder remains actively engaged with the bank on other business. He urged a uniform 10-year standard across accounts and boxes "to create a sense of equity across both systems," lamenting that in practice the senate behaves as though bills cannot be amended once they arrive.
He also pressed the Leader of Government Business to confirm, in her wrap-up, whether the Abandoned Safe Deposit Box Liquidation Fund — established under the principal 2015 act and referenced in section 173(1) — has actually been created, and what concrete arrangements exist for its administration once the new act commences.
