Nana Addo Meets Local Banks Over Extension of Recapitalization Date

Citi Business News understands that the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, has met some Managing Directors and Chief Executive Officers of local banks in the country to discuss the request for an extension in the deadline date of the minimum capital requirement for indigenous banks.

The local banks are appealing for an extension of the timeline in meeting the minimum capital requirement from one year to four years.

By this, the local banks want the deadline to be extended from December 2018 to 2022.

Though the banks admit to the idea of recapitalization, they argue that the period requested for them to comply was short and, therefore, asked for an extension to enable them to effectively do so.

In a letter to the President and signed by all the Managing Directors and Chief Executive Officers of the local banks, the local banks said they were in a better position to recapitalise up to GH¢170 million by the end of 2018, GH¢220 million by the end of 2019, GH¢280 million in 2020, GH¢340 million in 2021 and GH¢400 million in 2022.

For now, it is unclear when the request will be implemented as the banks have till December 2018 per the schedule provided by the Bank of Ghana.

In September 2017, the BoG demanded of the universal banks to up their capital to GH¢400 million. It gave them one year three months to fully comply with the deadline in December 2018.

The reason given by the central bank for that directive was to, among other things, get the banks to be able to undertake big-ticket transactions.