Don’t panic; keep doing business with rural banks – BoG

The Bank of Ghana has denied social media rumours that its intended clean-up of the rural and community banks sector will cause depositors to lose their funds.

In a statement, the central bank said its attention “has been drawn to malicious messages circulating on social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook that an intended ‘clean up’ of the Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) sub-sector would negatively affect depositors fund with RCBs, urging them to move their funds to other institutions”.

“For the avoidance of doubt”, the statement noted, “the clean-up exercise is only directed at insolvent and illiquid financial institutions which are not able to meet depositor withdrawals”.

The exercise is to enable depositors have access to their funds, the bank added, and urged the “general public and customers to continue to do business with the RCBs that are solvent, liquid and strong”.

The statement, issued on Friday, 7 June 2019 said: “For further details, you may contact the Other Financial Institutions Supervision Department of Bank of Ghana on 0209-125348/0302665619”.

The central bank recently collapsed 386 insolvent and already-closed microfinance and microcredit institutions and hinted at turning its focus on the rural and community banks next.

Prior to that nine local commercial banks were collapsed by the central bank during its clean-up exercise in that sector.