The Royal Bank excels in retail, cashless banking

WHOLLY-OWNED Ghanaian bank, The Royal Bank (TRB), was honoured at the 16th Ghana Banking Awards held in Accra last Saturday.

The bank placed second for its efforts at promoting cashless banking in the country and aggressive retail banking.

The rationale behind the ‘Cashless Banking Award’ was to look for the bank that provided and played a leading role in non-cash services, including Automated Clearing House (ACH), Hybrid point of sales, E-commerce and Ghana Instant Pay (GIP).

The Retail Banking Award was also judged on the grounds of the bank that received the highest weighted aggregated scores for all of the categories assessed by households.

TRB grabbed the Best Growing Bank Award in 2013 and 2014 and also won the Best Bank in Retail Banking in 2014. The Bank also picked the Best Bank in Advisory Services in 2014.

Head of Finance and Strategy, Mr David Okyere Nyakoh, explained to this paper that the awards are a recognition of the strides the bank has achieved in the period under review.

The bank, he indicated, had increased its branch network to 26 nationwide, Tudu branch in Accra being the latest to be added.

According to Mr Nyakoh, the bank is well spread out and aggressive in the retail banking proposition.

The essence of opening more branches was to get closer to the customer and provide the kinds of services that make the bank stand out among its peers, he pointed out.

To make services easily accessible to retail customers, the bank has invested heavily in electronic and mobile banking.

“TRB is one of the most active promoters of the e-zwich service,” Mr Nyakoh said.

He admitted that the bank’s financial performance was, like other banks, impacted by the harsh economic conditions in the country, culminating in some losses, however “we recorded significant growth in total assets, interest income, fees and commissions and deposits”.