Thompson criticizes financial injustice in Ghanaian economy
Dalex Finance and Leasing Company Limited (DALEX) on Tuesday diagnosed the Ghanaian economy and affirmed that the bane of the country is “the injustice of Ghana’s Financial Sector”.
Mr Kenneth Kwamina Thompson Chief Executive Officer of Dalex Finance in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Tema stated that: “…there is an injustice in the Ghanaian financial sector that has persisted for decades. Now it feels like a non-issue.
“It has become part of the status quo and people have accepted it as normal. This is a system that provides security with one hand and denies sharing of returns with the other hand”.
Mr Thompson described as financial injustice, a system which allows the banks to collect deposits, lend it to the Government – they buy treasury bills or to their customers at up to 35 per cent, per annum at the end of the month.
“Go ahead to charge the customers for the privilege of keeping their money and pay most of them nothing-most banks pay less than 5 per cent on savings account and nothing on current accounts or a few some coins at best, this is injustice which must stop,” he said.
Mr. Thompson said: “It is an insult to say Ghanaians are greedy, everybody wants good returns on their hard-earned cash”.
The Dalex CEO revealed that the banks could do better for their customers, “if they want to, stressing that “it’s quite sad that for decades, Ghanaians have settled for next to nothing from the financial institutions that they save with.
“The massive financial sector crisis and clean-up added fuel to the fire of this injustice and now people feel it’s more than enough to settle for just safe”.
He said despite the injustice, some financial institutions still offered safety, and high returns, stressing that there were credible players in Ghana’s financial sector.
He therefore advised investors and the public to seek financial advice before deciding whether to continue transacting business with their traditional bank or change direction, “the financial injustice must stop”.
The Dalex CEO said customers must look out for financial institutions with “the triple reward of safety, peace of mind, and high returns”.
Mr Joe Jackson, Dalex Finance Director of Strategy, also explained to the GNA that four years after the sector clean-up, the Bank of Ghana was exercising much tighter control over the financial sector, adding “Efforts to restore faith in the security of the financial system are important because confidence in the financial sector is key to its development.
Mr Jackson noted that the SME sector was the engine of growth, and growth could only be possible if there was a viable financial sector to support SMEs to deliver prosperity and create jobs.
He suggested that other means to address the financial injustice was for the financial institutions “to add perks like no charges on any transactions, wholly digitised systems for customer convenience and full transparency on all operations; it’s safe to say that Ghanaians don’t have to settle for just safe anymore”.
Dalex Finance is a wholly Ghanaian owned and operate Specialized Deposit-taking Institution (SDI) licensed by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and has been in operation in Ghana since 2006.
Since 2013, Dalex Finance began the process of becoming a digital finance company with the objective of delivering its products and services with speed and convenience.
Currently, Dalex Finance is capable of originating and disbursing loans and investment products digitally and employs over 3000 persons through 102 sales points nationwide.
Strategically, Dalex Finance offers financial services in rural and peri-urban areas.
Source: GNA