The ARB APEX Bank has assured Ghanaians that it will work together with the Bank of Ghana to identify and address bottlenecks in some of their member banks to ensure depositors’ funds are protected.
Mr Kojo Mattah, Managing Director of ARB APEX Bank, gave the assurance in a speech delivered on his behalf by Mr Mark Odoi Adjei, Manager in charge of the Accra branch of the APEX Bank, at the 34th annual general meeting of the Brakwa-Breman Rural Bank Limited (BBRB), held at Ajumako.
He said the ARB Apex Bank would continue to support efforts aimed at ensuring a sound financial system in the country because that was the only path to a bright future for all shareholders of the Rural Communities Banks.
The Managing Director congratulated the Shareholders, Directors and Management of BBRB for the modest gains made in the 2018 financial year.
“We are aware that we are not in normal times and therefore, the Profit before Tax of GHȼ 136,369.00 is an impressive achievement and I urge you to concentrate your efforts on the medium to small business segment, because that is where your strength lies,” he said.
Mr Mattah encouraged BBRB Limited and their member banks “to strive to perfect the small business financially because this segment holds a huge potential,” and also pleaded with the banks to desist from investing in high risk businesses since these “too good to be true investments” often had a high potential of locking up all their assets in non-recoverable investment portfolios.
According to him, the banking industry had been undergoing some ground breaking changes over the past few years, saying that, the RCB sub-sector had, however, showed a high level of resilience because most of the banks had been performing creditably well.
“We know that our success at the ARB Apex Bank is inextricably linked to the success of our banks and that is why we are always working very hard to introduce many products which would help to improve our business processes and help to diversify the income streams of the RCBs,” he said.
Mr Mattah said the much awaited ARB Apex Bank-RCBs’ Agency Banking would soon be launched, and that, they have secured a US$8 million grant from the World Bank for the roll out of the Agency Banking.
He indicated that cyber fraud had become a major challenge to all players in the financial services sector and in that regard, they had deployed a Security Incident and Events Management System to monitor all activities on the network.
“This project is expected to be completed with the full deployment of a Security Operations Centre (SOC), which would be connected to the National SOC,” he stated.
He further announced that, in line with the new vision of the ARB Apex Bank, which states that; “to remain the most effective and efficient service provider to RCBs,” the bank shall endeavour to improve service delivery and commitment to the RCBs so that their member banks can render value-added services to their customers.
“In this regard, we are deploying automated teller machines (ATMs) at RCBs across the country and currently, more than 70 ATMs have been deployed and the number is expected to grow to more than 100 before the end of the year,” Mr Mattah added.
He, therefore, urged the Directors of the banks to take advantage of this enhanced service delivery channel and apply for the ATMs. GNA
