Banking sector clean-up was difficult, painful but averted total financial sector collapse - Governor

Bank of Ghana Governor Ernest Addison has said though the closure of some nine local banks was "difficult and painful", the measures taken by the central bank at the time, with the support of the government’s assumption of the payments due depositors, "helped avert the total collapse of the banking sector and, by extension, the rest of the financial sector".

Speaking at the Chartered Institute of Bankers' Governor's Day, Dr Addison said the three-year banking sector reforms, which "successfully" ended in 2019, made the "better-capitalised, liquid, profitable, more resilient with adequate capital buffers, and more operationally efficient" at the end of the day.

The reforms included an increase in the minimum capital requirement for banks, revocation of licenses of insolvent institutions, and an overhaul of the regulatory and supervisory frameworks.

Dr Addison pointed out that "although we note the sanity and resilience in the banking system after the clean-up exercise, the full benefits would be achieved with a much faster completion of the legal proceedings including over 1,300 civil and 21 criminal cases currently pending at different stages in our courts".

The collapsed banks include Unibank Ghana Ltd, The Royal Bank Ltd, Beige Bank LTD, Sovereign Bank LTD, Construction Bank LTD, Heritage Bank Ghana, UT Bank, Capital Bank, and Premium Bank.