The bank said that income was "modest" by historical standards but still viewed it as a positive achievement against the backdrop of macro-economic difficulties and low interest rates in the firm’s key markets.

Client assets under administration at the bank stood at $46.5 billion at the end of the year, up $4 billion from $42.5 billion a year earlier, while assets under management decreased by $200 million to $3.4 billion during 2011. Butterfield also reported that revenue grew by nearly 10 per cent to $339 million in 2011.

The firm also drove through changes to the organizational structure in 2011, which resulted in $7.9 million one-off staff costs. Towards the end of last year, the bank also completed a three-year project to convert its core banking systems in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands to a new platform called Oracle managed by HP.

Besides the Caribbean, the bank has operations in the UK and Guernsey, a UK Crown Dependency in the English Channel.