GCB makes fantastic gains at the Exchange

Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) trading activity in its shares for the four-month period from January to April 2002 has markedly outstripped what was recorded for the entire 2001 financial year.

This impressive report was made by F.O. Tweneboa, Managing Director of Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) at a ?facts behind the figures programme,? initiated by the exchange a few weeks ago. Tweneboa said volume traded for the current period to April 2002 was 6,500,400 shares valued at ?11.140 billion against 2,689,300 shares valued at ?4.257 billion recorded for the year 2001, translating into percentage increase of 144.68 and 161.69 respectively over the 2001 levels.

He said the company?s share price as at the end of April 2002, showed 11.69 percent appreciation, rising from 1,600 at the end of April 2001 to 1,787 at the same date this year.

In an address, Kwabena Dapaah-Siakwan, Deputy Managing Director of GCB said the bank?s corporate objective of regaining the leadership role in the banking industry, which is incorporated in its strategic plan, has been adhered to assiduously ?over the past couple of years.? The plan contains the vision and mission of management of the bank. In line with the mission, management seeks to align the operations of the bank in a manner that would make it become more efficient and competitive.

He said upon a number of deliberations, it came to light that the bank would achieve its desired level of competitiveness if it: concentrates on its core business of commercial banking; segments its market according to specific customer needs in order to serve them more effectively; rationalise its structure and branch network; improve upon existing information technology in order to increase the quality of service to the customer, among others.

Dapaah-Siakwan said the bank has stuck to these strategic themes for the past two years and will continue to operate under them. ?Our objectives for the ensuing years would not depart significantly from our mission statement,? he stressed.

?We would among others, seek to sustain the momentum set in respect of product development. We would intensify our marketing efforts with regard to existing products as well. It is our expectation that these objectives when translated into reality would enable the bank to mobilise excess liquidity in the rural areas as well as urban and metropolitan centres.

?We would focus on automation of GCB?s remaining branches; of the branches to be sited at same key commercial towns, it is the intention of the bank to ensure that they are fully automated from the outset. Additional ATMs will be procured in order to make banking easier to customers,? he declared.

The Deputy Managing Director said if events travel according to plan, the universal banking solution, which the bank acquired not too long ago, would become fully operational with its accompanying benefits. These include real time processing efficient delivery channels such as telephone and Internet banking.

Because of GCB?s impressive performance, it won the Bank of the Year Award for Ghana in 2001, for the second year running. This is an award by the ?Banker?, an international banking magazine of the prestigious Financial Times Group, London. Only two weeks ago GCB received another award in Brussels as Banker of the Decade (1992 - 2000) by the European Market Research Centre (EMRC).

On the outlook for the future, Dapaah-Siakwan said 2001 marked the terminal year of the bank?s corporate plan, it has put up in its place another plan, which carries the intentions of the bank in the medium term 2002 to 2004. Specific themes and actions to implement include: re-engineer the processes of the bank through the increased use of state-of-act information technology.

Specially, the 25 branches on ?Wide Area Network, currently being driven by Firware will migrate to Flex cube? to take advantage of the enhanced attributes, which the latter provides and roll out 25 branches by the end of 2002; provide more ATM?s this year; enhance capabilities through training and development, and the institution of appropriate and meaningful reward schemes.