Fidelity Bank Considers Merging – MD

The Managing Director of Fidelity Bank, Mr. Jim Baiden has told Citi Business News the bank is considering mergers with some banks in the country.

Even though Mr. Baiden did not name the particular bank Fidelity bank is targeting, he maintained that the move is a strategy to entrench the bank’s position as one of the biggest indigenous banks in the country.

The Governor of the central bank, Dr. Ernest Addison during the announcement of the policy rate in September disclosed that some banks have proposed mergers and takeovers after the Bank of Ghana increased the minimum Capital Requirement from 120 million cedis to 400 million cedis.

Speaking to Citi Business News, Mr. Baiden stated that the bank has shown interest in some other banks.

“Meeting the new minimum capital requirement of 400 million cedis is not a problem at all for Fidelity bank. We are looking in to the banking space. It is possible that we will be interested in a few banks and signal consolidation”.

He added that “it’s likely that Fidelity will merge or invite other smaller banks to merge with us into a bigger entity”.

Mr. Baiden pointed out that the bank is currently performing well financially with strong financial statement.

“Fidelity bank is one of the two indigenous banks who have emerged as very strong because our capital adequacy is one of the highest. Our liquidity ratio is also one of the highest in the country”, he said

Mr. Baiden spoke to Citi Business News at the side-lines of the launch of a book titled “Developing Africa’s Financial Services: The Importance of High Impact Entrepreneurship,”.

The book which highlights the success story of Fidelity Bank was written by Prof. Dana Redford.

Source: Citibusinessnews