Banking sector clean-up must be managed well to build public confidence – Researcher

A Senior Research Officer at the Center for Democratic Development (CDD), Daniel Armah-Attoh has said that Ghanaians may lose interest in the entire financial sector if the clean-up in the sector is not managed properly.

According to him, people’s confidence in the sector will wane if persons whose actions and inactions led to the collapse of the various banking institutions are not punished.

Speaking to a recent AfroBarometer survey on the financial sector in Ghana, he said some deliberate steps must be taken to build the confidence of the populace in the sector.

The survey, among other things found that Ghanaians consider microfinance companies to be unsafe to do business with, unlike universal banks.

“If we don’t take care, it can lead to a loss of confidence in the financial sector. It is so clear that we are not managing it very well. To build confidence, people must suffer for their mistakes but if you have the situation where people have taken people’s monies and they have not applied the monies very well and now you are using tax money to clear some of these debts and those who created this mess, we are not seeing anything,” he said.

According to the survey, 58 percent of Ghanaians feel banks are a very safe place to keep their savings.

A further 25 percent felt banks were somewhat safe with 8 percent and 7 percent respectively saying banks were not safe and not safe at all.

On the Savings and loans front, 61 percent of Ghanaians feel they are either not safe or not safe at all.

Microfinance companies were given a vote of no confidence with 64 percent saying they are either not safe or not safe at all.

Seventy-two percent of Ghanaians generally felt their mobile money wallets were safe.

Banking sector reforms
In August 2017, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) gave GCB Bank Ltd the green light to acquire  two local banks  UT and Capital bank due to severe impairment of their capital.

In August 2018, the Bank of Ghana consolidated  five other local banks  into what it calls the Consolidated Bank Ghana limited.

The bank of Ghana in a statement on January 4, 2019, following the expiration of the minimum capital requirement deadline, said, all the 23 remaining banks have met the new minimum paid-up capital of GHC400 million.

347 microfinance companies also had their licenses revoked by the Bank of Ghana in May 2019.