The Asante Akyem Rural Bank maintained a satisfactory performance in both the second and third quarter of 2009, according to the Apex Bank’s Efficiency Monitoring Unit quarterly report.

This performance earned the bank the 54th position, out of 132 rural banks assessed at the end of the third quarter of 2009.

The Managing Director of the (ARB) Apex Bank, Mr Eric Osei Bonsu, announced this in a speech read on his behalf by Mr  Emmanuel Yaw Sarpong, Head of Banking Operations of the Apex Bank, at the 22nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Asante Akyem Rural Bank at Juansa in the Ashanti Region.

While congratulating the board, management and the staff on their hard work, Mr  Osei Bonsu urged them to strive to sustain their performance since there was more room for improvement.

The Managing Director, however, charged the bank to put appropriate measurers in place in order to increase the bank’s profitability since the bank’s net profit before tax decreased from GH¢251,039.00 in 2007 to GH¢188,886.51 in 2008; a drop of 25 per cent.

Even though the bank’s stated capital of GH¢169,453 exceeded the Bank of Ghana’s minimum requirement of GH¢150,000, Mr  Osei Bonsu entreated the bank’s shareholders to increase their shares so as to increase the bank’s capital and enable it to become more competitive in today’s banking industry.

Mr Osei Bonsu also seized the opportunity to encourage all rural and community banks to have internal audit units as part of their management structure to help oversee the implementation of the bank’s operational system.

He also advised the boards of all rural and community banks to institute risk management policy, which would enable them to identify, assess, monitor and control risks.

Earlier in his report, the Chairman of the board, Mr Francis Opuni Sekyere, explained that the drop in the  profit after tax by about 25 per cent in 2008 was due to increase in default rate, resulting in the huge provision of bad and doubtful debts of GH¢86,465.30.

Mr Opuni Sekyere  also said that another contributory factor to the drop in profit was the upward adjustment of staff salaries.

According to the board chairman, credit to customers increased by 32.25 per cent from GH¢2,983, 000 to GH¢3,495,000.

He, therefore, appealed to customers to repay their loans on time to enable others to also benefit, since the bank did not want to drag its customers to court.

The chairman announced that in recognition of the bank’s performance and contribution to the economic development of Ashanti, the bank received the “Gold Award” from Otumfuo Osei Tutu II during the Sixth Ashanti Financial Service Excellence Awards in November.

Source: Daily Graphic

PF