The Bank of Ghana (BoG) must intensify its communication strategy to explain what the merger of the five struggling local banks means to the Ghanaian, Gideon Amissah, a financial analyst and consultant, has said.
According to him, most Ghanaians, especially those at the grassroots, do not understand why The BEIGE, Royal, Construction, uniBank and Sovereign banks were merged, hence a lot of anxiety and panic among depositors.
The BoG on Wednesday, 1 August merged the five struggling local banks to form The Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited.
According to the BoG, The BEIGE, Sovereign and the Construction banks obtained their banking licences under false pretences through the use of suspicious and non-existent capital, whereas The Royal Bank had non-performing loans which constitute 78.9 per cent of loans and uniBank had a capital deficit of GHS7.4 billion compared to the regulatory minimum of GHS400 million.
But some customers of some of the now-defunct banks who spoke on Accra News on Thursday, 2 August, expressed worry over the development and indicated their readiness to withdraw their deposits from the Consolidated Bank. In the view of the depositors, the merger meant they had lost their monies.
Speaking in an interview with Accra News’ Katakyie Obeng Mensah on Thursday, 2 August, Mr Amissah said among other things that: “The Bank of Ghana will need to do a lot of communication on the merger to explain what is happening to Ghanaians.
“Most Ghanaians have received the news of the merger but they don’t really understand what is happening in the banking sector, so, they think their deposits are lost but that is not the case.
“It appears that only a few elite in society understand what the central bank is doing but the majority of the people at the grassroots do not, and, so, the BoG will need to intensify its communications strategy.”
Source: Ghana/ClassFMonline.com
