Ghana needs fewer banks – Casely-Hayford

The number of banks in Ghana are many and must be scaled down to “fewer banks with bigger capital bases” to ensure better financial operations, Financial Analyst, Sydney Casely-Hayford has said.

According to him the over 30 banks in the country is not healthy as most of them do not have enough capital.

Mr Casely-Hayford’s comment comes on the bank of the collapse of Capital and UT Banks after poor financial performs for years.

Mr Casely-Hayford who was contributing to the discussion on the purchase of the defunct banks by GCB Bank Limited on Citi FM’s The Big Issue on Saturday, August 19, seems to be in agreement with Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, Minister of Monitoring and Evaluation who argues that Ghana has too many commercial banks.

According to him, the number of commercial banks in Ghana vis-à-vis its 26 million population, is unhealthy for the financial sector, therefore the smaller banks must consider consolidation.

Speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra 100.5FM on Tuesday in connection with the takeover of UT and Capital banks by GCB, Dr Akoto Osei said: “All the smaller banks should be able to consolidate for us to have a few big banks. For a small country like Ghana we have too many commercial banks and that is not healthy. Ideally, banks should be thinking about consolidation.”

On Monday the Bank of Ghana announced that GCB has taken over UT Bank Ltd and Capital Bank Ltd as the two banks were struggling to operate financially.

A statement issued by the Central Bank said: “The Bank of Ghana has approved a Purchase and Assumption transaction with GCB Bank Limited that transfers all deposits and selected assets of UT Bank Ltd and Capital Bank Ltd to GCB Bank Ltd. The Bank of Ghana has revoked the licenses of UT Bank Ltd and Capital Bank Ltd. This action has become necessary due to severe impalement of their capital. The remaining assets and liabilities will be realised and settled respectively through a receivership process to be undertaken by Messers Vish Ashiagbor and Eric Nana Nipah of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“The main offices and branches of UT Bank and Capital Bank will be under the control of GCB Bank, and will be opened at 1 PM today for normal business transactions.”