Ghana Commercial Bank eyes African spot
Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) has initiated a transformation programme to help reposition it as one of the leading banks in Africa operating according to world class standards, Simon Dornoo, Managing Director of the bank, has said.
He said the exercise, which began in 2010, is a major change programme involving the review of the bank’s governance structures, its people, processes, systems and infrastructure with the view to providing the best in products and services to its customers and to all other stakeholders.
Speaking at a soiree organized by the bank for its top management members and senior media personnel in Accra on Tuesday, Mr Dornoo said the transformation exercise was aimed at delivering a new customer service and performance oriented culture.
Touching on the key initiatives of the transformation, the GCB boss said the bank has offered alternate services points to decongest its banking halls as much as possible.
“These cover the provision of more ATMs, offering of internet banking service at both corporate and individual debit cards and an expedited and automated personal loan process,” he said.
Mr Dornoo said, for instance, the bank has purchased new ATMs to enhance the network and replace old ATMs, adding that by the end of June 2012, GCB will have a total of 233 ATMs, both off and on site while bigger branches by virtue of business volumes will have two ATMs.
“Currently, there are no charges for GCB customers in the use of the ATMs. The Bank has also introduced SMS banking where customers receive alerts on their phones as soon as a transaction hits the account. All these are aimed at making banking easier for customers and as at the end of February some 133,011 customers had signed onto the SMS banking service,” he said.
GCB, Mr Dornoo said, had also enhanced its internet banking service, ensuring the convenience of checking balances, transferring of funds across accounts, facilitating salary payments and account monitoring, for both individual and corporate customers, explaining that “for example, the Finance Director of a company can pay the salaries of employees from the comfort of his office.”
He also indicated that the bank has introduced a 24 hour personal loan, enabling it to satisfy its customers tremendously and promptly in loan facilitation, explaining that “a salaried worker can now obtain a loan from GCB within 24 hours.”
The actual application process takes less than 15 minutes and the funds are made available in the customer’s account within 24 hour.
Mr Dornoo said GCB was improving its governance framework, involving a re-look at the organizational structure of the bank to ensure that it was aligned to the bank’s customer segments.
To this end, he said GCB had designed a new organizational chart with new Executives joining the team, including Mr Edward Botchway, who is the Chief Operating Officer and the Chief Information Officer, Mr El-Farouk Umar.
“The human resources work is ongoing and will include Performance Management and Reward Systems. We will improve staff training and identify talent within the organization. These individuals would be supported to rise to the top. The bank is also looking at its Risk Management systems with a view to becoming Base II compliant by the end of the year”, the GCB Managing Director said.
According to Mr Dornoo, GCB is also upgrading its branches, adding that “Last year, we refurbished over 20 branches and we hope to refurbish 25 more branches this year while considering the re-branding of the bank”.
Source: Daily Graphic