Fomena (Ash), June 21, GNA - The ARB Apex Bank has urged shareholders of rural and community banks to ensure that people of proven and satisfactory professional and academic qualifications with no criminal records are elected to serve as board of directors.

Mr. Kenneth Owusu-Twumasi, Head of Human Resource and Administration of ARB Apex Bank, who made the call at the 16th annual general meeting of shareholders of Adansi Rural Bank at Fomena in the Adansi North district, stressed, "The board of any bank should comprise people of integrity who have varied background and experience that they can bring to bear on the activities of the board".

According to Mr. Owusu-Twumasi, the competitive banking environment had made the business of banking challenging which called for seasoned board of directors and executive management who could live up to the task.

He observed that some management and directors of rural and community banks did not have the competence and experience needed to manage a bank.

"The Bank of Ghana's policy of directorship and management of banks requires the appointment of non-executive and executive individuals who pass the fit and proper test to run the affairs of the banks", he said.

He reminded the rural banks of the new Banking Act of 2004, Act 673 and said provisions had been made for penalties to be levied against banks for delayed, inaccurate and non-submission of returns. He said already, the Bank of Ghana in collaboration with the ARB Apex Bank had organized training for all rural banks on the new banking law and the new format of the prudential returns.

Mr Owusu-Twumasi appealed to all board of directors, management and staff of rural banks to study the new Banking Act so that they would be conversant with its provisions since sanctions prescribed in the law would be enforced to the letter.

He described Adansi Rural Bank as "champion bank," following the bank's appreciable growth rate over the past years but challenged them to work harder to attain even greater heights in the years ahead. Touching on the way forward of the bank, Mr Ahmad K. Boakye, the Chairman of the Board of Directors, said the expansion of the bank and the re-location of some agencies were going to be vigorously tackled. He said the bank was going to re-engineer its investment with concentration on medium term financial instruments. Mr Boakye added that credit expansion with more emphasis on micro financing was to be pursued.