Local banks in Ghana are losing ownership as Ghana’s central bank revokes the licence of five of them

desmond frimpong

August 2, 2018 2:37 PM

The banks involved were Unibank Ghana, The Royal Bank, Beige Bank, Sovereign Bank and Construction Bank.

Ghana’s central bank, Bank of Ghana, has revoked the licenses of five badly performing banks and appointed a receiver to manage their assets, it said in a statement on Wednesday.

The BoG claims some of affected banks procured their operational licences through dubious means.

Dr Ernest Addison, Bank of Ghana governor, who disclosed this at a press conference in Accra, said it has appointed Nii Amanor Dodoo of KPMG as the receiver for the five banks.

He stated, “All deposits of the five banks are safe and have been transferred to the Consolidated Bank. Customers can carry out their business as usual at their respective banks which will now become branches of the Consolidated Bank.”

According to Dr Addison, all staff of the collapsed banks, totalling about 2,000, would become staff of the Consolidated Bank, adding that boards and shareholders of the five banks would no longer have any role in the new bank.

The governor explained that efforts by the banks to overcome financial difficulties proved futile, resulting in the worsening of their plight, hence the decision to merge them.

He said Unibank and Royal Bank were identified during the asset quality review update in a 2016 exercise to be significantly undercapitalised.

The two banks subsequently submitted capital restoration plans to BoG which failed to return them to solvency and compliance with prudential requirements.

desmond frimpong