Nandom (U/W), Oct. 25, GNA - The ARB Apex Bank will as from next year, start operating international money transfer service to afford Ghanaians resident abroad the opportunity of making remittances to their relations and dependants through the one hundred and seventeen rural banks throughout the country. Presently, Ghanaians resident outside the country could only remit their relations through the mainstream banks operating in the urban areas.

This was disclosed by Mr Emmanuel Kwapong, Managing Director of the ARB Apex Limited at the 22nd annual general meeting of the Nandom Rural Bank Limited in the Upper West Region on Saturday.

Mr Ken Owusu-Twumasi, Head, Human Resource and Administration of the bank read the address on behalf of Mr Kwapong.

Mr Kwapong announced that the through the intervention of the Vice President, the Apex Bank has given special dispensation to the three northern regions to establish additional rural banks, as the three regions currently have a total of only eight rural banks out of the 117 rural banks throughout the country.

He noted that the introduction of modern equipment like computers and communication gadget had greatly enhanced reporting and service delivery by the rural banks.

Mr Kwapong further disclosed that the ARB Apex Bank had procured a number of banking application software for installation in all the existing rural banks to ensure uniformity in the operational process of all the rural banks.

He said he bank, in collaboration with the donor community has instituted various training programmes to address the training needs of the rural banking systems.

The Managing Director commended the Nandom Rural Bank for the good progress made over the years.

He was happy that the bank had increased its profit from 377.6 million in 2002 to 547.5 million cedis as at December 31, 2003. In addition, the bank had never made a loss since its establishment, while making profits year after year.