Fidelity Bank close to meeting GH¢400m capital requirement

Business News of Monday, 23 April 2018

Source: Myjoyonline.com

2018-04-23

Jim Baiden AgainFidelity Bank Managing Director, Jim Baiden

Managing director of Fidelity Bank, Jim Baiden, has hinted the bank is almost through with meeting the GH¢400 million capital requirement by the end of December 2018.

“Following the failure of some local banks recently, an independent research into the strengths of local banks versus foreign banks has concluded that Fidelity Bank with a Capital Adequacy Ratio of 29 percent and a liquidity ratio of 28 percent is one of the top 3 strongest banks in Ghana today, foreign or local.

Our current capital position is substantially close to the new minimum and we will be able to meet the requirement before the end of this year,” Jim Baiden stated at the Fidelity Customer Appreciation Awards in Accra.

He said meeting the new capital requirement complements the bank’s success as one of the top five banks in the country.

So far, heads of indigenous banks in the country have met the president in a desperate move to have him intervene in a new capital requirement they claim could destabilize local banks.

All the remaining banks, local and foreign have until the end of December 2018 to raise the minimum capital or risk folding up.

With some eight months away from the deadline, some local banks say the GH¢400 million is too high a demand to meet. Already, UT Bank, Capital Bank and Unibank, all local banks, have been taken over due to poor financial management.

Some of the remaining local banks fear if the Bank of Ghana fails to rescind its decision by reducing the minimum capital requirement, they might fold up.

The second deputy governer of the Bank of Ghana, Elsie Awadzi re-echoed plans to strengthen frameworks to deal with struggling banks to salvage cases of collapse.

“The bank of Ghana has had to take regulatory action to sanitize the banking sector to regain confidence in the sector. The increased minimum, as well as the move to Basel two and three, are all part of the measures,” she revealed.

Following the collapse of UT and Capital Bank as well as the managerial take-over of Unibank, there have been calls for the regulator to introduce tighter regulations to sanitise the banking sector.

Customer appreciation award

The Fidelity Bank Customer Appreciation Award saw three customers of the bank rewarded 50,000 cedis each after partaking of the 10x Richer Promo.

The grand draw saw Anita Mensah of Takoradi in the Western Region, Mawutor Diedonna of Ashaiman in Accra and Shaibu Amudu at Tamale in the Northern Region declared winners.

To win the promo, new customers are required to open a current or savings account with a minimum deposit of GHS 500 or multiples of it. The money must stay in the account for a minimum of one month or more to qualify for the draw. Existing customers are also required to top up existing account balances with GHS 500 or multiples of it. The new funds must also stay in the account for a minimum of one month or more to qualify.

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