20 Banks Set to Meet BoG's Minimum Capital Requirement - Governor

By Kingsley Asare

Twenty-two out of the 30 universal banks in the country are on the verge of meeting the Minimum Capital Requirement (MCR) of the Bank of Ghana (BoG).

The Governor of BoG, Dr Ernest Addison who disclosed this at the 85 Monetary Policy Committee news conference to announce the new monetary policy rate, said he was hopeful all the 22 banks would meet the MCR before the end of the year.

For the third consecutive time the BoG has maintained the policy rate at 17 per cent.

"From the information, I have on my table all the universal banks, will meet the MCR capital requirement by the stipulated time," he said.

The BoG last year issued a directive all the banks in the country to recapitlise up to GH?400 million before the end of this year, a move which is meant to well capitalise the banks to enable them undertake big ticket transactions and also compete well with their peers in the developed economies.

Dr Addison indicated that those banks who could not meet the MCR by the end of December would have to merge.

"Banks that want to operate in the banking space must meet the prudential requirement," he said.

The Governor expressed the hope that lending rates next year would go down as banks would have more capital to lend in view of the new MCR.

On the issue of depositors of the Consolidate Bank Ghana Limited demanding their deposits, he said there was the need to reconcile the accounts of the collapse banks as well as the claims of the depositors.

The Governor said the Consolidated Bank was well capitalised and all customers of the erstwhile defunct banks would be paid their deposits, saying, "We should have confidence in the bank."

The BoG early this year merged five universal banks, namely uniBank, Royal Bank, Construction Bank, Royal Bank, Sovereign and Beige Bank due to the liquidity challenges facing the banks.

Turning his focus on the Specialised Deposit Taking Institutions (SDI), Dr Addison said the sector was faced with challenges, and said the BoG was working with the Ministry of Finance to address the challenges facing the SDIs.

He disclosed that the BoG like it did to the customers of DKM, would pay depositors of collapse licensed SDIs.

"The intention is to extend support to the SDI sector and pay depositors of collapse licensed SDIs," he said.

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