EMPLOYEES' BENEFIT PLAN

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2016

Employees' Benefit Plan [Abstract]

Employees' Benefit Plan [Text Block]

NOTE 23 – EMPLOYEES’ BENEFIT PLAN

FirstBank provides contributory retirement plans pursuant to Section 1081.01 of the Puerto Rico Internal Revenue Code of 2011 for Puerto Rico employees and Section 401(k) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code for USVI and U.S. employees (the “Plans”). All employees are eligible to participate in the Plans after three months of service for purposes of making elective deferral contributions and one year of service for purposes of sharing in the Bank’s matching, qualified matching, and qualified nonelective contributions. Under the provisions of the Plans, the Bank contributes 25% of the first 4% of the participant’s compensation contributed to the Plans on a pretax basis. Participants were permitted to contribute up to $15,000 for each of 2014, 2015 and 2016 ($17,500 for 2014, and $18,000for each of 2015 and 2016 for USVI and U.S. employees). Additional contributions to the Plans are voluntarily made by the Bank as determined by its Board of Directors. No additional discretionary contributions were made for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014. The Bank had a total plan expense of $1.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2016, $1.4 million for 2015, and $2.2 million for 2014.