Fifteen Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) in Ghana are to be liquidated, an audit report conducted by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has indicate d .Mr. Okoh Sai, Director, Banking Supervision Department of the BoG, said here Thu rsday that transactions of the rural and community were found to be unsatisfacto r y.
This means that the report found transactions in 121 out of the current 136 RCBs to be practical and satisfactory.
“Liquidation in the banking sector is executed not to cause systemic problem but to weed out and reduce risk in the financial sector,” Sai added.
The study was commissioned by the World Bank and ARB Apex Bank, which focused on the emergence and evolution of RCBs; review of Ghanaâ?s financial sector; the l egal, regulatory and supervision framework governing RCBs.
According to Sai, RCBs needed to establish strong management systems, adopt inno vative business portfolios and penetrate into the rural communities in order to f ace the competition posed by the universal banksâ? infiltration into their catch ment zones.
The current minimum capital requirement for RCBs in Ghana is 150,000 cedis, with out which a rural bank would not be allowed to operate.
