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National Heroes Day Banking Hours

Butterfield will be closed on Monday, 20 June, 2022 for National Heroes Day. To access your accounts, please use our Butterfield Online, ATM and mobile banking services.



Our Banking Centres will re-open on Tuesday, 21 June, 2022 from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

We have moved! Our new address is: PO Box 250, IFC6, IFC Jersey, St Helier, Jersey, JE4 5PU.

 

Please be advised our EUR & USD Notice account rates have been updated. Please click here to view our Notice account rates. 

 

Butterfield will be closed on Monday, 13 November, for the Remembrance Day public holiday. Our Banking Centres will reopen on Tuesday, 14 November, at 9 a.m. To access your accounts, please use Butterfield Online and our ATM network.

Old Sterling Banknotes – removed from circulation on 1 October 2022.

Please be advised that as of Saturday, 1 October 2022, Butterfield will not accept old paper sterling notes for banking deposits or transactions as they will no longer be legal tender. The official last day of use is Friday, 30 September 2022.

Butterfield clients are encouraged to deposit old notes or swap them out for the new polymer ones at any Butterfield Banking Centre before Saturday, 1 October 2022. From this date, only polymer sterling banknotes will be accepted.

We will be closed on Monday, 23 January 2023 for National Heroes Day. Our Midtown Plaza Banking Centre will be this Saturday from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. and otherwise all Banking Centres will reopen on Tuesday, 24 January 2023, with normal operating hours of 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. You can continue to access your accounts during the public holiday by using our Butterfield Online, ATM and mobile banking devices.

Please be advised our General Terms and Conditions have been updated in reference to a new clause 11.3.  Please click here to view the full document.

Holiday Banking Hours:

Butterfield will be closed from 2 p.m. on Friday 23 December and will reopen 9 a.m. Wednesday 28 December, 2022.

We will close again from 4 p.m. on Friday 30 December, 2022 and will reopen 9 a.m. Tuesday 3 January, 2023.

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Update on Saturday Banking: Saturday Banking will be temporarily suspended as we allow time for annual training and infrastructure investment initiatives. To access your accounts, please use our Butterfield Online, ATM and mobile banking services. Saturday Banking hours will resume as normal on March 4th.

Please be aware that we will be carrying out work on our technology systems from 6 pm on Friday, 6 October. Butterfield Online and Saturday Banking will be unavailable this weekend. All services are expected to resume as normal on Monday, 9 October. 

Butterfield will be closed on Monday, 2 September 2024, for the Labour Day public holiday. To access your accounts, please use Butterfield Online and our ATM network.

Our Banking Centres will re-open on Tuesday, 3 September 2024, from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Butterfield will be closed on Monday, 17 June 2024 for the King’s Birthday public holiday. To access your accounts, please use Butterfield Online and our ATM network.

Our Banking Centres will re-open on Tuesday, 18 May 2024 from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Update on Saturday Banking: We are pleased to announce the return of Saturday Banking. Our Front Street Banking Centre will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. every Saturday for you to take care of your personal banking needs.

Update on Saturday Banking: Saturday Banking will be temporarily suspended effective 15 July 2023, as we allow time for annual training and infrastructure investment initiatives. We will advise when Saturday Banking services have resumed. To access your accounts, please use Butterfield Online and our ATM network. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Hurricane Lee Advisory: Please be advised that our offices and Banking Centres in Bermuda will be open for business from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. today.

The ATMs at Collector’s Hill, Modern Mart, Somerset MarketPlace and Somerset Banking Centre are back in service and Saturday banking will be available tomorrow at Front Street from 10:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

We are pleased to report the issue with debit card settlements has been fixed for the vast majority of accounts impacted, and we are working to correct the few outstanding. If you still see an issue with your account and you require access to blocked funds immediately, please contact the call centre.

Please be advised that our Banking Centres will be closing at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, 6 October. Butterfield Online will also be unavailable this weekend from 4:00 p.m. on Friday, 6 October until Monday, 9 October at 9:00 a.m. as part of a scheduled systems update.

Our Island Saver Instant Access account now has a reduced minimum of £10,000. Click here for more details

Our Fee Schedule has been updated, effective Friday, 1 March 2024. For full details, please review the Fee Schedule here

 

Butterfield will be closed on Monday, 17 June 2024 for the National Heroes Day public holiday. To access your accounts, please use Butterfield Online and our ATM network.
All Banking Centres will reopen on Tuesday, 18 June 2024, with our normal operating hours of 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Our Schedule of Charges for Personal and Corporate Banking services have been updated, effective Tuesday, 2 January 2024. For full details, please review the Schedule of Charges documents in our website footer below. 

Our Schedule of Charges for Personal and Corporate Banking services have been updated, effective Tuesday, 2 January 2024. For full details, please review the Schedule of Charges documents in our website footer below. 

Please be advised our EUR & USD Notice account rates have been updated.  Please click here to view our Notice account rates. 

 

29 April 2024

By: Richard Maparura, Senior Portfolio Manager, Asset Management, Butterfield

The Japanese stock market is the second largest in the world but often gets little attention. Recently, the Nikkei stock market has been crushing records and topped the 40k mark for the first time at the time of writing. The business community has been celebrating this historic moment and see it as a possible end to the nation’s lost decades. The country's macroeconomic reality, however, remains fragile and it is a stretch to say that the profitability of Japanese companies' main business activities have significantly improved. The high stock market may be a unique phenomenon, leaving some investors to wonder why and question whether the rally will continue.

While some investors may be put off by Japan's sluggish economic growth in recent decades, it is important to note that many Japanese companies like Sony and Toyota have more than 70% of their sales internationally. This global exposure has helped to propel earnings growth even as domestic economic growth has been weak. The recent return to the 1989 bubble peak for Japan's stock market has been supported by much higher earnings per share than would be presumed by economic growth. Corporate profits for Japanese companies are now almost three times what they were the last time stocks were at these levels.

This growth came despite Japan's economy slipping into a technical recession in the third and fourth quarters of last year before revisions. For decades, international investors shunned Japan’s stock market, whose meagre gains mirrored the country’s protracted economic stagnation. However, significant structural changes are being implemented with government, policymakers and shareholders working together. The country is shifting to an inflationary economy after years of deflation, and corporate governance reforms are taking root. At the same time, market valuations are not overstretched, something capturing the interest of foreign value investors, underpinned by billionaire investor Warren Buffet’s bullish outlook on Japanese equities since early last year.

Since January 2016, the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) policy of zero or negative interest rates has enabled the country to be an important source of investment funding, with negative interest rates allowing investors to borrow cheaply in yen and then purchase investments in other countries offering higher yields. The Bank finally exited negative interest rate territory this year at its March meeting, signalling its confidence that the country has emerged from the grip of deflation. Wages have already started to rise with one of their biggest increases since the early 1990s happening this year.

The Bank eliminated its yield curve control framework and announced that its short-term interest rate will be the primary policy tool. It also terminated its exchange-traded fund (ETF) and Japanese real estate investment trust (J-REIT) purchase program, although this did not come as a surprise because no meaningful purchases have been seen in a long time and there are no plans to sell current holdings. With the end of negative rates, the Bank is now widely expected to hike rates by this June. Any rate hikes this year have the potential to prompt Japanese investors to sell foreign assets and bring funds home, incentivized by higher interest rates and the best performing stock market in developed markets so far.

Meanwhile, the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has requested listed companies to take “Action to Implement Management that is Conscious of Capital and Share Price”. This has resulted in announcements of planned operational changes to boost corporate value and an increase in share buybacks by many companies. Over the past two years, Japanese companies have been increasing their stock buybacks and have made efforts to increase dividend payouts. With the push to increase Price to Book Ratios (PBR) by the government, further increases in share buybacks and dividends are more likely.

To ensure that listed companies can maintain returns exceeding the minimum investment return (cost of capital) for investors, management reforms have been focused on changing the structure of the boards and the mindsets of teams. Many listed companies have had PBR below one which meant that the values of these companies were lower than their dissolution value. This persistent sluggish stock price performance which is now going away had been pointed out as a long-standing problem for listed companies. Recently, there have been a number of multibillion-dollar all-cash acquisition transactions which have been financed by debt, indicating that Japanese firms are now thinking strategically about how to grow their businesses and are also more willing to take on risk.

Under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s new capitalism drive, Japan has also sought to encourage a shift from saving towards investing, relaunching its Nippon Individual Savings Account (NISA) programme with higher annual investment limits and extended tax-exemption periods. This programme may bring more local buyers into the market as the new savings program aims to encourage Japanese investors to move money from cash into stocks. According to BoJ, only about 13% of Japan's liquid household assets are in stocks compared to over 40% in the US and more than 20% in Europe. This is also in-line with cash deposits making up over 50% of households' financial assets in Japan compared to less than 15% in the US and about 35% in the eurozone. The behaviour of households and corporations in Japan has been the direct result of a deflationary mindset. As this mindset changes, there is likely to be changes in consumption, investment, and savings patterns, which in turn, will have significant ramifications for the equity market and the broader economy over the longer term. January inflows into NISA has already approximately tripled compared with 2023 levels, based on a tabulation by five large internet brokers in Japan.

Another factor also contributing to Japan’s higher stock prices has been the decline in investment appetite for China, not only by European and American investors but also by Chinese investors due to the slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy and increasing geopolitical risks. As China’s economy grapples with challenges ranging from crackdowns on private industry to a slow-moving real estate crisis, foreign investors have been pulling out of the Chinese stock market. Instead, many investors have diverted their money to the Japanese market. Global companies have also been diversifying their supply chains away from China, benefitting Japan, particularly in the very high-end technology sectors like semiconductors. A weaker yen, hovering at its lowest levels since the 1990s, has also boosted corporate profits. In fact, the forward price-to-earnings ratio for the Japanese stock market is close to 15, in line with the 20-year historical average. In comparison, the S&P 500 forward price-to-earnings ratio is now over 20, which is more than 30% above its 20-year historical average. Even though certain pockets of the market may appear to be ahead of fundamentals, aggregate valuations in Japan remain compelling.

Japanese equities remain attractive on a medium to long-term view providing these two key themes continue to play out: corporate governance improvement which is driving better capital efficiency and higher shareholder returns, and the shift from deflation to inflation. With the market reaching new highs lately, a market pullback due to a short-term momentum reversion is likely. However, considering the positive structural changes underway, this could be an opportunity for investors to re-evaluate their portfolio weightings to Japanese equities.

Sources: The Japan Times & Bloomberg Economics
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the opinions of the writer and whilst believed reliable may differ from the views of Butterfield Bank (Cayman) Limited. The Bank accepts no liability for errors or actions taken on the basis of this information.