No bank will fail to recapitalize – Bank of Ghana

The governor of the Bank of Ghana Mr Kwesi Amissah-Arthur believes that no bank in the country will fail to meet the central bank’s minimum capital requirement of GH¢60 million by the December 2012 deadline.

The central bank issued new regulations in 2008 asking banks to recapitalized to the tune of GH¢60 million. Although foreign owned banks were given a one year period within which to meet the directive, domestic banks were expected to recapitalise to GH¢25 million by December 2010 and subsequently reach the GH¢60 million by December 2012.

As at December 2011, 16 of the 27 commercial banks licensed to do business in Ghana have so far raised the new stated capital requirement required by the regulator.

But according to Mr Amissah-Arthur, discussions with the banks who are yet to meet the requirement, suggests that they are all ahead of schedule in the recapitalization process.

“I don’t believe that any bank will fail to recapitalize because the discussions we are holding with them suggests that they are all way up front ahead of schedule in the recapitalization,” Mr Amissah-Arthur told reporters during the BoG’s 50th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting  in Accra April 13, 2012.

The governor said some banks are doing private placement and he [Amissah-Arthur] has been “receiving offers everyday from external banks that want to buy into Ghanaian banks”.

“On that score alone they will be able to make it,” he stated.

But some, according to Mr Amissah-Arthur, are looking for domestic solutions to this problem. “Some are looking for domestic solutions…so their default is that if everything else fails, they have offers from outside they can look at,” he said.

Some banks have already considered listing on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) to raise the required capital after stakeholders at their Annual General Meetings (AGMs) approved of such a move.

By Ekow Quandzie