Fate of 10 banks in limbo as deadline to meet Ghc400m requirement approaches

Twenty out of the 30 existing universal banks in Ghana have now met the GHS400 million Minimum Capital Requirement of the Bank of Ghana as the 31 December 2018 deadline approaches, Second Deputy Governor Elsie Awadzi has disclosed at a Finance forum in Accra.

“Over 20 banks have met [the minimum capital requirement] or are already there and we have 30 banks, so, the rest, we are meeting them on a daily basis to say: ‘Tell [us] where you are on your capital raising plans’.

“We are confident that they are going to meet [it] but if for some reason they cannot meet and will not merge, well, then that is another matter altogether, but we cannot allow banks that are not well-capitalised to remain in the system after 1 January”.

Banks who fail to meet the new capital requirement will be downgraded to Savings & Loans or Microfinance institutions.

Since August 2017, seven local banks have gone under.

Two of them, UT Bank and Capital Bank, were taken over by the state-owned GCB Bank.