ECOWAS organises interactive workshop for financial sector in Accra

Accra, March 30, GNA -The Private ECOWAS Financial Improvements Board (PEFIB) will hold a high level interactive workshop on Wednesday with participants from the ECOWAS financial sector. PEFIB is organising the workshop with technical and financial support from PRO=80INVEST an Africa, Caribbean Pacific (ACP) and European Commission (EC) Investment promotion facility to enable the participants to deliberate on the degree of adoption of Basle II principles among banking institutions in the ECOWAS Region, challenges and difficulties encountered, and the way forward towards successful implementation.

"Participants representing mainly the private financial institutions in the sub-region will seek to provide answers to the private sector role in pushing forward the Basle II reforms," says Mr D. K. Mensah, Chairman of the PEFIB,

He explained that adopting Basel II was selected from a range of topics because of the global financial crisis. Mr Mensah said generally banks in the region did not have the capital base or strategic profile to be significant players in sophisticated capital market activities and largely escaped the negative consequences of the global financial crisis, it. nevertheless acted as a warning bell that risk management needed to be improved across banks in the region.

"As Basel II sets the international standard on Risk Management, it was considered important to provide more information on this to banks in the ECOWAS region, as most have expressed the need for technical support in moving forward on this," he said. PEFIB, a private sector initiative was established mid-2009 as a Business Support Organisation for the financial sector. It is a not-for-profit legal entity which aims to further regional integration of the financial sector by providing local and regional banks with information and support to increase their cross-border profile and effectiveness.

PRO=80INVEST is a programme of the Group of ACP and the EC for the promotion of investment and technology transfers in ACP countries. Its management has been entrusted to the Centre for the Development of Enterprise under the supervision of Europe Aid Co-operation Office of the EC.