15 Banks in Line to Meet BoG Minimum Capital Requirement

By Kingsley Asare

The Bank of Ghana (BoG), has disclosed that six out of the current 34 universal banks in the country have met its new minimum capital requirement of GH?400 million ahead of the deadline in December this year.

Also, it said nine of the universal banks are in the various stages of meeting the new capital requirement of the BoG before the end of the year.

Governor of the BoG, Dr Ernest Addison announced this at the 83rd regular meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the BoG in Accra yesterday, however, he declined to mention the name of the banks.

"In all, a total of fifteen of the universal banks will meet the new capital requirement by the end of the year," Dr Addison said.

He indicated that four of the banks had "almost" met the GH?400 million capitalisation and another five banks "are likely to meet" per the documents they had submitted to the Central Bank.

The BoG last year asked the universal banks in the country to recapitalise from the current GH?120 million to GH?400 million by the end of this year.

He said the objective of the new capital requirement was to ensure that the universal banks were well capitalised to handle big ticket transactions and compete with international peers.

The Governor said the universal banks which could not raise the GH?400 million by the end of the year had the option to merge, disclosing that so far three banks, namely GN, Sahel Sahara and Premium banks have given indications to merge.

Dr Addison said the remaining universal banks which had not given indication of merging, were working to meet the new minimum capital requirement.

Asked about the status of unibank, which BoG was placed under an administrator, the Governor said the BoG had been furnished with the 90-day report on the bank and was studying it.

Dr Addison disclosed that BoG would soon embark on reforms on specialised deposit taking institutions such as micro finance industry and savings and loans industries, to strengthen their capacities and governance system to build a strong SDI industry.

Meanwhile, he said, the Deposit Protect law had been enacted and the Ghana Deposit Insurance Corporation was being established to provide insurance to depositors in the event of the collapse of a bank.

The Governor said the BoG still stood by its statement which annulled the shares held by Belstar Capital Limited in ADB and SIC-Financial Services Limited.

Belstar Capital Limited is alleged to have issued a statement refuting the allegations raised by the BoG against the company.

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