Mr. Kojo Mattah, Managing Director of ARB APEX Bank Limited has congratulated the Directors, Management, Staff and stakeholders of Brakwa Breman Rural Bank for the achievements over the years and for keeping the bank on its feet.

He said their performance had helped them to support the socio-economic development of the area and advised them to put in more strategies to improve on their performance.

Mr Mattah gave the commendation in an address delivered by Ms. Francisca Dedei Attipoe Manger, Finance and Administration Department of AREX Bank Ltd on his behalf at the 33rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at Breman Asikuma in the Central Region.

He urged them to re-position the operations of the bank in order to further enhance its overall results.

“As you may be aware that the banking landscape has changed and continues to change with respect to regulations, technology, competition, governance and customer expectations of which Brakwa Breman Rural Bank Ltd would prove equal to the challenges ahead.

“I noted from your annual report that apart from a slightly dipped profit recorded over the previous year, almost all the other financial indications recorded impressive result, “he said.

Mr Mattah said it was his expectation that they would continue to work hard in order to record even better results in the years ahead and assured them of the ARB Apex Bank’s support in their programmes designed to forge ahead.

He advised the Directors and the Management staff of the bank to put in place strategies to pursue defaulting borrowers to repay their overdue debts in order to improve the fortunes of the bank for other customers to also enjoy their loan facilities.

He further stated that there was the need for the Board and Management to improve on their commission and fee-based products; develop new and innovative products that would adequately meet the needs of their clients.

According to Mr Mattah the ARB APEX Bank noted with satisfaction that their Efficiency Monitoring Unit report as at the end of the first quarter this year, Brakwa Breman Rural Bank maintained its satisfactory status and also emerged the 54th Rural Bank out of 141 Rural Community Banks (RCBs) in the country and also ranked 6th among RGBs in Central Region.

The Managing Director announced that many events had occurred in the banking environment in recent years and key to them was the introduction of a new minimum capital requirement for the RCBs and added that as at the end of the first quarter, 95 RCBs out of the 141 RBCs had met the new Bank of Ghana’s minimum capital requirement of GHc1 Million and their bank was among the 95 RBCs.

Mr Mattah encouraged Directors and Shareholders of RCBs which were yet to meet the new requirement to consider various options of raising the new capital and speed up with their compliances plans, preferably by using a combination of mergers and acquisitions.

“It is necessary for all RCBs to comply and even add more to the regulatory minimum capital to enable them take advantage of bigger business opportunities in their operations,” he added.