KINGSTON, Jamaica – National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited (NCB) will play a key role in the revamped visa application system announced recently by the Embassy of the United States of America in Kingston at its press conference held to disclose details of the new package of improvements.
As of Monday, November 17, 2008, the Bank will begin collecting the visa application fee of US$131.00 at its 48 branches island wide and will be the exclusive collection agency.
“For us this is really an extension of what we do as a Bank. Payment services is something that we are very good at,” Mrs. Audrey Tugwell Henry, NCB’s Senior General Manager for Retail Banking said. “We manage millions of payments on a daily basis and we do it very efficiently and quite effectively and, therefore, this is quite in line with the range of services that we offer.” Mrs. Henry also pointed out that NCB’s extensive branch network, places the Bank at a distinct advantage to handle the anticipated traffic once the service is announced.
U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica Brenda LaGrange Johnson announced that the new service would offer a new level of convenience to the public, and would be comparable to visa services offered in the Caribbean Region and North America by U.S. embassies. “The main feature will be the scheduling of appointments for visa interviews through a pay-for-service Call Centre and a parallel web-based system,” Ambassador Johnson said.
The Call Centre option commences November 19, 2008 and will attract a fee of US$13.00 to obtain visa information and schedule an appointment for a non-immigrant visa interview. The fees also payable through NCB will generate a Personal Identification Number (PIN), which covers an eight-minute conversation, and will allow an applicant to reschedule the appointment twice, if necessary. The Call Centre will be operated by CSC Corporation, a U.S. State Department contractor located in Washington DC.
Official embassy courier service will be provided by DHL for home delivery of passports to all successful applicants. Further details relating to the U.S. Visa Application process is available on the embassy’s website at www.usvisa-jamaica.com
Mrs. Tugwell Henry iterated that the partnership with the US Embassy is expected to be very successful and promised to deliver beyond the level of service anticipated to ensure that this new system would be a success. The process will see the following:
– Fees will be accepted at all 48 NCB branches islandwide
– Only Jamaican dollar deposits will be allowed.
– Payment of fees may be made by cash or account transfer.
– Transactions will primarily be done at the Express Tellers.
“Our commitment is to a high quality of service; our commitment is to the accuracy; and thanks to our IT department we’ll be able to able to communicate quite effectively and easily with the embassy in delivering the transactions on time and accurately on a daily basis,” Mrs. Tugwell Henry concluded.
