THE ARB Apex Bank has assured rural and community banks that, its computerisation programme is on track and that the process will commence before the end of this month.
The Managing Director of Apex Bank, Mr Eric Osei-Bonsu, who gave the assurance urged rural banks to consider mergers so as to cut down the cost of the excercise.
The managing director hinted that the programme was being undertaken with the assistance from the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA).
He said the financial outlay was huge and it was against this background that rural banks were being urged to consider the possibility of mergers instead of each bank trying to survive on its own.
He said under the project, all rural banks would be expected to log into a central database system which would be hosted at the Apex Bank Head Office in Accra through a wide-area-network.
He, therefore, urged rural banks to strengthen their internal controls to ensure that their operations were carried out in an orderly manner and were consistent with best practices in the banking industry.
Mr Osei-Bonsu also charged boards and management of rural banks to also put necessary structures in place to identify and mitigate the incidence of risk which may adversely affect the achievement of their bank’s objectives.
He said with more than 60 per cent of the country’s population living in rural areas, there was the need for the rural and community banks to take stock of their achievements and chart a new way forward for further improvement.
The managing director said with the discovery of oil in the Western Region, more businessese were likely to spring up there and therefore called on rural and community banks to position themselves well to take advantage of the upsurge of various business that would arise in the area.
No comments:
Post a Comment