Builsa Community Bank lauded as a model bank
The Builsa Community Bank limited (BUCO-Bank) has been declared a model bank for all rural community banks in the three northern regions.
The bank, which is based in the Builsa North District of the Upper East Region, has for the past twenty years performed creditably and was rated as ‘strong ‘in 2015 by the Efficiency Monitoring Unit of Apex Bank.
More so it is the only rural bank in the Upper East Region that met the mandatory minimum stated capital of GH¢500,000.00 for 2016.
The bank’s achievement was made known at its 20th Anniversary and 16th Annual General Meeting held at Sandema.
The Regional Manager of the Apex Bank, Mr Zinzendorf Pascal Nkulenu and the President of the Upper East Chapter of the Association of Rural Banks, Alhaji Abdul-Sharif Adams, both lauded the bank for its remarkable achievement.
Whilst calling upon the management and staff of the bank to ensure that they continued to focus on customer care to attract more customers, Mr Nkulenu said there is the need for the shareholders of the bank to buy more shares to help increase its capital base to meet the mandatory requirement of the GH¢1,000,000.00 set by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) for the year 2017.
He said all banks which cannot meet the BoG mandatory requirement for the year 2017 should consider a merger.
Naab Akanab Apoom-Weem, the Board Chairman of the bank, said in spite of the general economic challenges in the year 2015, the bank recorded a profit of GH¢708,621.00 before tax which represents a decrease of 86,432.00 (10.9) from the previous year’s performance.
He said during the year under review, the bank grew its balance sheet size by 30.5 per cent to close the year with an asset base of a little over GH¢18.62 million adding that the growth in the asset of the bank was propelled by a 75.8 per cent growth in short time investments as well as 54.1 per cent growth in property, plant and equipment investment.
He said cash on hand, plus balances with other banks also increased by 23.7 per cent to GH¢1.73 million at the close of the year under review.
The Board Chairman said the increase in the bank’s assets was funded mainly from an increase in the customer base and borrowings adding that customer deposits for 2015 increased by 29.7 per cent to GH¢13.57 million.
Mr Awudu Hayatudeen, the General Manager of the Bank, who presented citations and some rewards to the founders and past board members of the bank, said the bank which has branches in Sandema, Bolgatanga, Fumbisi and Yagaba, currently has about fifty thousand clients.
Mr Bonaventure Adangabey, District Chief Executive for the area, who read the speech for the Regional Minister, Mr Albert Abongo, commended the Bank for complementing government’s efforts in the areas of job creation, health, education, agriculture, and small scale businesses.
“All these support from the BUCO-Bank have translated to the growth and development of the Builsa North District and I urge you to continue”, the Regional Minister, said.
Source: GNA