All set for Banking Awards survey

Business News of Monday, 22 April 2013

Source: graphic.com.gh

All is set for the commencement of a banking survey that will lead to the selection of the best banks in 16 award categories at the 2012 Ghana Banking Awards (GBA) slated for June, this year.

More than 2,000 bank customers are expected to be interviewed during the nationwide survey and they will be expected to answer a wide range of questions on the quality of banking services offered in the country.

The annual awards are organised by Corporate Initiative Ghana (CIG)

The Chief Host and Chairman of the Awards Planning Committee, Mr Willing Vanderpuye, told the Daily Graphic in Accra that “after the last technical committee of the Banking Awards held last week, banks together with the event statisticians, agreed on a wide range of ground rules for the successful conduct of this year’s awards”.

The technical committee is made up of representatives from the banks, Ernst and Young, an internationally renowned accounting firm, Cedinomics, a financial consultant, Ipsos Synovate, the research and survey institution.

“After revising aspects of the methodology together, banks have presented their audited annual accounts for 2012, their corporate social responsibility actions and details of products launched during the last year. Banks have also put their best foot forward in write-ups of current profiles”, Mr Vanderpuye added.

He also noted that each bank had provided the event statisticians with a list of their top 200 corporate customers to be interviewed in a corporate customer survey.

Mr Vanderpuye said the retail customer survey would take the form of customer intercepts at three branches in the southern part of the country and one branch from the northern part.

The various award categories as put up by the event organisers are; Customer Service, Advisory Services, Trade Finance, Competitive Pricing, Consumer Financing, Medium Term Loan Financing, Long Term Loan Financing, Export Finance, ICT/Electronic Banking, Product Innovation, Agric Financing and Best Growing Bank.

The rest are; Corporate Social Responsibility, Best Bank Retail Banking and Best Bank Corporate Banking. Three new categories have been added to this year’s awards and these are Best Bank Mobile banking, Trade Deal of the Year and a Life Time Award for Distinguished Retired Bankers.

Banks will be anxiously waiting for the ultimate winner of “The Bank of the Year Award”.

This award goes to the bank with the highest weighted scores for the retail and corporate survey as well as CSR and financial performance.