- 94 RCBs out of 141 have met the GHS1m threshold
- APEX Bank suggest transfer of income surplus to meet demand
The ARB Apex Bank has said it will not intervene for those rural banks that are unable to meet the Bank of Ghana new capital requirement.
Non-compliance with the new directive means licenses for those banks will surely be withdrawn indefinitely by the regulator, the Bank of Ghana (BoG).
The Central Bank, in 2015, raised the minimum paid-up capital requirement for all rural and community banks (RCBs) in Ghana from GHS300, 000 to GHS1million.
Instructively, all 141 RCBs nationwide were expected to raise their paid-up capital to GHS500, 000 by December 2016 and GHS1million by December 2017.
As of June last year, only 51 out of the 141 rural banks had met and exceeded the GHS1million threshold paid-up-capital.
BoG Governor, Dr. Ernest Addison at the Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) 79th regular meeting, last year November, said the Central Bank would be flexible in implementing the new capital requirement for RCBs after realizing that a chunk of them were struggling to meet the requirement at the December 2017 deadline.
However, Deputy Director of the ARB Apex Bank, the mini central bank for RCBs, Mr. Alex Awuah, told the Goldstreet Business that the Apex Bank will not intervene for those banks which are unable to meet the new requirement.
“The deadline elapsed last December, and we know the BoG is only being flexible but they could act any moment from now till the end of the year. We at the Apex Bank will not intervene for those banks because we are not supposed to put money in those banks per our mandate. The BoG has the finality on issues of capital requirement,” he said.
Explaining further, Mr. Awuah disclosed that the ARB in the coming months will hold discussions with the BoG to discuss the issue but the ultimate decision, he added, will always be with the Central Bank.
“As at the end of March 2018 per our assessment, 94 RCBs have met the requirement and it is looking positive. We want to encourage those RCBs which have surpluses to transfer from their income surpluses to meet the stated capital requirement,” he said.
