BoG to take action against MFIs breaking rules

The Bank of Ghana will soon crack down on Microfinance Finance Institutions (MFIs) and financial houses that are failing to pay back the investment of their customers.

The Manager at the Market Conduct Office, Financial Stability Department at the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Augustine Amoako Donkor told Accra-based Citi FM “Some of these microfinance actually went beyond the rule by investing in other businesses that they were not supposed to. They pick money on short-term bases and invest in long-term real estate and similar others. For those ones, we are trying to deal with them from the regulation aspect.”

This decision comes after the BoG received many complaints from some customers of distressed MFIs who have consistently failed to release the investments of customers.

In recent times customers of ASN Financial Services Limited threatened to embark on a demonstration if their monies are not refunded by the end of the month while customers of Accent Financial Services also called on the BoG to step in to help retrieve their locked up cash.

However, Mr. Amoako Donkor assured that the law will take its course in dealing with such companies.

“They are unable to give monies back to the customers because of liquidity challenges which they find themselves in because of the way they have managed their activities in the past. Some of them have actually flouted the rule and they will be dealt with” he revealed.

“For those that are purely due to mismanagement, yes, we try to go after their management and let the law take its course. We admit it is a difficult one, it is a big challenge but we are now increasing supervision and regulation to reduce some of these incidence” he added.