CBG prepares to pay savings & Loans, micro-finance customers

Management of Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG) on Monday said it is ready to commence full payment of funds to depositors of collapsed microfinance, microcredit, Savings and Loans as well as Finance House companies.

A statement copied to the Ghana News Agency and signed by Mr Daniel Wilson Addo, the Managing Director of CBG, said the payment of funds, which takes effect from Monday, February 24, was announced by the President in his 4th State of the Nation Address last Thursday.

It said the government has made available to CBG a combination of cash and bonds totaling about five billion Ghana Cedis (GHC5,000,000,000.00) to fully settle outstanding depositor claims of these resolved institutions as well as that of the 39 Micro Credit institutions in official liquidation.

The statement said to ensure that the affected customers were well served, there were clear modalities for them to follow and that the Bank would start by first paying depositors whose claims have already been validated.

It advised depositors, whose claims were yet to be validated, to exercise patience.

The statement assured customers that their claims would be paid as soon as the validation was completed by the Receiver.

It said a short message service (SMS) would be sent to depositors when their payments were due by the Receiver, adding that there was no need for them to go to the banking halls if they had not received notification by SMS, to come for their funds.

“The modalities for the payment of the outstanding depositor obligations, will be based on information to be provided by the Receiver on depositors and that CBG will open new accounts for all depositors whose claim(s) have been validated and agreed in the receivership of the resolved companies, and the SMS messaging that will be sent, will communicate the account number and the amount due each depositor," the statement said.

It said that depositors could access their funds at any CBG branch and should go along with valid national identification documents such as a Driver’s License, Voter's ID card or Passport.

The statement assured the affected depositors that it would continue to work with the Receiver to validate the remaining claims and would communicate the status of depositor claims submitted within the claim deadline period.

It said every effort would be made to pay all depositors and urged them to cooperate with the bank for a smooth and successful payment process.

“We will treat the depositors as our customers and give them the best of service as we stand with them throughout the entire process,” the statement said.