Bank of Baroda Charges Lowest Interest

Bank of Baroda topped the Central Bank's recently published list of financial institutions’ Annual Percentage Rates (APR) on interest charged on loans to the banking public and average interest (AI) paid on deposits by banks as at 31^st January, this year.

The APR is the true interest rate that banks and non-bank financial institutions charge the public on loans and advances.

It reflects the true cost of borrowings and includes charges and commissions levied by banks,” the Central Bank said.

The report, which contained the rates offered by 31 commercial banks operating in Ghana, said Bank of Baroda charged 14.6 percent as base rate (the minimum interest rate that can be charged on loans and services), offered 12.7 percent as average interest rate on monies deposited with it by customers and charged between 24.5 percent and 28.8 percent on loans to its clients respectively on agricultural and manufacturing projects.

SCB ranked second after Bank of Baroda on the base rate chart with 18.4 percent, while Barclays Bank, Stanbic Bank, SG Bank, GCB and Zenith Bank charged 21.2 percent, 21.5 percent, 22.3 percent, 22.7 percent and 23.3 percent in that order.

Royal Bank charged 38 percent, while Capital Bank and HFC charged 35 percent and 34.5 percent respectively.

In the area of interest on deposits, SCB topped the list with 4.3 percent, followed by Energy bank at 5.7 percent, ADB at 6.7 percent, GT Bank at 7.3 percent, UMB at 9.5 percent, as well as GCB Bank and CAL Bank emerging 6^th at 9.6 percent.

In an era when agriculture has been reported not to be doing well, chiefly due to lack of funding to carry out projects and the high risks associated with them, Unibank was on record as charging the highest at 45.5 percent, followed by Omnibank at 42 percent and then First Atlantic at 41.2 percent.

ADB charged 30.4 percent on loans to persons or organizations, who wanted to contract loans for agriculture projects, while Bank of Africa charged 35.6 percent.

Barclays Bank charged between 28.6 percent and 39.7 percent while Sahel Sahara (BSIC) charged 37.6 percent.

According to the Central Bank, the publication of the rates was to promote transparency in the pricing and provision of banking services in the country.

By Samuel Boadi
[email protected]