Asakraka, July 6, GNA- The Dumpong rural bank at Asakraka in the Kwahu South District recorded a profit before tax of GHC 57,393 last year as against GHC 12,136 in 2008.

The profit margin represented 373 per cent. The chairman of the Board of Directors of the bank, Mr Emmanuel Bonna, announced this at the 15th Annual General Meeting (AGM), of the bank at Asakraka at the weekend. He said deposit of the bank also recorded a remarkable increase of GHC1,879,383 last year as against GHC1,349,154 in 2008, an increase of 39 per cent.

The bank granted loans and overdrafts totalling GHC875,125 in 2009 to its customers in the sectors of transport, construction, agriculture, commerce and salaried workers, as against GHC708,499 the previous year, representing an increase of 23.51 perc ent. Mr Bonna said the bank was able to raise a share capital of GHC150,000 as required by the Bank of Ghana from all rural banks, while its total assets went up from GHC1,1761,076 in 2008 to GHC2,293,616 in 2009. He said the bank had 100 per cent increase in its investments from GHC 200,000 two years ago to GHC400,000 last year. Mr Bonna said all the necessary logistics had been provided and installed at all branches of the bank for its computerization programme to take off. He therefore advised all stakeholders of the bank to increase their share capital to enhance the capital base of the bank. In an address read on his behalf, the Managing Director of the ARB Apex bank, Mr Eric Osei-Bonsu, observed that the performances of most Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) had been encouraging. He said in spite of those achievements, RCBs had a lot more to do by way of organizational restructuring, especially in the areas of migrating from manual operation to embracing Information and Communication Technology (ICT), innovation.

Mr Osei-Bonsu urged rural banks to form cooperatives as a solution for their survival in the face of the changing, challenging, competitive and turbulent landscape of the banking industry. He advised RCBs to intensify their Micro-Finance development, which had high loan recovery rate as compared to the traditional retail banking in the country. 06 July 10