Akyem Osino, Sept 04, GNA - The balance sheet of the Mumuadu Rural Bank at Akyem Osino, grew by 24.50 percent, from GHC 7.38 million in 2008 to GHC 9.19 million in 2009.

The deposit base of the bank also expanded by 29.04 percent, to GHC 6.79, from GHC 5.26 million, Mr Seth Adom-Asomaning, Chairman of the Board of Directors, disclosed this at the 22nd Annual General Meeting of the bank at Akyem Osino on Saturday.

He said total advances for the year under review amounted to GHC 5.01 million as at December 31 2009, up from GHC 4.10 million in 2008. "Total investments in Treasury Bills increased from GHC 948,248 in 2008 to GHC 1,129,218 in 2009". Mr Adom- Asomaning announced that the bank purchased a total of GHC 4,236,736 Cocoa Akuafo cheques last year as compared to GHC 644,659 purchased in 2008.

He indicated that a number of training programmes were undertaken in 2009 to ensure that customers continued to enjoy improved service delivery.

"We are committed to employing and retaining outstanding members of staff. Management has been tasked to institute performance based compensation programs to reward outstanding members of staff." On social responsibility, Mr Adom Asomaning said the bank continued to offer support to the needy in the society, adding that, a total amount of GHC 12,511.00 was spent on various intervention initiatives at Akyem Osino, including GHC 10,000.00 to the Agricultural University College at Bunso.

He said in anticipation of increasing competition in the banking industry, management successfully negotiated a competitive loan of GHC 500,000.00 at very good terms from "SPEED Ghana limited" for on-lending to their increasing customers.

Mr Eric Osei-Bonsu, Managing Director of the ARB Apex Bank Limited, in a speech read on his behalf, commended the board, the supervising manager and his management team for their visionary and transformational leadership and the staff for their hard work and dedication. He observed that the performance of most Rural and Community Banks (RCBs,) had been very encouraging as they had consistently registered impressive deposit mobilization and some significant increases in share capital.

Mr Osei-Bonsu said that notwithstanding, rural banks still had a lot more to do by way of organizational and operational restructuring, especially in the areas of migration from manual operations to embracing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) intervention, effective deposit mobilization, cost control and reduction and improvement in the internal control systems. He said those activities would enable RCBs to meet the challenges of the changing competitive and turbulent business environment. Mr Osei Bonsu said the Bank of Ghana in its bid to modernize the national payment system and banking supervision, had rolled out products for the big commercial banks and rural banks. "Among the products are, E-Zwich, E-Fass, Cheque Codline Clearing/Automated Clearing House (CCC/ACH). He said those services were geared towards making the payment system safe, efficient and fast. Mr Osei-Bonsu said in addition to those services, the Apex bank would soon move its star product, the Apex Link Money transfer product onto an ICT platform, to make it more efficient, fast, safe and secure. 04 Sept 10