ARB Apex Bank, which exists to serve all rural and community banks in Ghana, has opened a new office complex building in the Eastern Regional capital, Koforidua, to increase its existing branches in the country.
The GH¢3,142 million building, has a regional office branch on the ground floor, a state-of-the-art conference room on the first floor, and offices for the Eastern Regional Chapter of the Association of Rural Banks.
Speaking at the commissioning, 2nd Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Madam Elsie Addo Awadzi, said the opening of the building shows the bank’s readiness to expand its reach and impact for the benefit of RCBs and the customers they serve.
According to her, ARB Apex Bank has over the years played a critical role in facilitating effective rural and community banking. She thus encouraged the board and management to go an extra mile.
“The Commissioning of this building signals ARB Apex Bank’s readiness to expand the reach and impact of its work for the benefit of Rural and Community Banks and the customers they serve. ARB Apex Bank has played a pivotal role in facilitating effective rural financial intermediation over the years through its provision of banking and non-banking support services to RCBs with the aim of helping to effectively address the banking needs of rural communities”.
“We expect that ARB Apex bank will continue to promote good cooperate governance, effective risk management, strong internal controls, consumer protection and digitization in the RCB sector to help reposition the sector in this fast evolving financial services space in Ghana.”
According to her, the “ARB Apex Bank’s recent ISO 27,001 certification is a major achievement that will help it to enhance information security in the rural and community banking environment going forward, and this will help to reduce the incidence of fraud and other related risks in the sector.”
2nd Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Madam Elsie Addo Awadzi, said the Bank continues to explore ways to further strengthen the capacity of ARB Apex Bank to better support the RCB sector and their customer base.
“Once again, I congratulate the Board, Management and staff ARB Apex Bank on the successful completion of this ultra-modern facility”.
Kojo Mattah, the Managing Director for ARB Apex Bank, called on the general public to continue trusting the Community Banks and carry out more transactions with them.
“ARB Apex Bank is a service facilitator and a mini central bank for rural and community banks in the country. We have 145 rural banks in Ghana; and these banks have been able to mobilize 4 and half billion Ghana cedis in deposit, the banks also provide loans to their customers and even during COVID-19, they have given some sort of reliefs by way of interest and moratorium on interest and loan repayment”.
“We serve over six and half million customers; and we pride ourselves to have the largest network of over 800 rural and community bank branches. We are a pivot in the rural economic development; and we believe that rural banking has come to stay, and we would want to assure all our numerous customers to have confidence in the rural and community banks and continue to do business with us”.
24 RCBs in Eastern Region mobilize GHS650 million
Mr. Mattah further revealed that a total of 24 rural banks in the Eastern Region have mobilized GHS 650 Million in support of the economy.
“In the Eastern Region, we have about 24 rural banks and among them, they have mobilized over 650 million Ghana cedis as at June 2020. This is no mean achievement looking at the competition in the banking; and again I want to encourage our numerous customers and potential customers in the Eastern Region, to continue doing business with the rural and community banks that are in their communities”.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of ARB Apex Bank, Dr. Toni Aubynn, announced that the Bank is speeding up processes to ensure the much awaited rural and community banks’ Agency Banking project is realized to help create jobs in various communities and increase the commission pool for the banks.
Dr. Aubynn assured that the bank would continue to make relevant and significant investments in the Eastern Region to ensure that rural and community banks remain in the league of well performing banks in the country.
Neil Nii Amatey Kanarku
citibusinessnews.com
