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Provide Investment Opportunities to Customers ─ Former Deputy Governor Charges Banks

A former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Asiedu-Mante, has tasked banks to provide competitive investment opportunities to customers.

He said this will enable banks attract more customers into the banking sector.

Addressing some key stakeholders at the 21st National Banking Conference in Accra yesterday, he stated that a recent engagement with the public made him realized that individuals sometimes struggle in finding avenues to deploy their fund.

“Through product and service offerings aided by advisory services, financial literacy programs, cross-selling strategies among others, this knowledge gap could be bridged”, he stressed.

Touching on the role of board of members in the banking industry, he said there is a need for boards to exercise good judgment in their oversight responsibility of banks in a forward-looking basis.

According to him, the banking landscape in Ghana is evolving, rendering the role of the board of directors much more challenging and imperative.

“The board needs to be very intrusive and inquisitive in constructively challenging senior management. In my opinion, the regulator in his assessment of Management performance in the SLEMS (Solvency, Liquidity, Earning, Management and Sensitivity to market) rating criteria, should pick signals of CEO and senior management posture and apprehension to challenges from the board as a major concern”, he stressed.

To enhance robustness of banks, he is of the conviction that having a properly structured board in terms of leadership; size and usage of board committees can help the board carry out its oversight role and other responsibilities effectively.

He indicated that “it is expected that the role of the board chair as well as the mandate, scope and working procedures of the various board committees should be clearly communicated in the board charter.”

On credit penetration in the economy, he said banks can do more to improve the statistics.

The decrease in the credit to GDP ratio, according to him, raises the question as to how economic agents finance their activities.

Source: Emmanuel Yeboah Britwum/ thePublisher

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