The First Allied Bank which has been operating in the country for the past 19 years has opened its 25th branch in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region to offer banking services to customers.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the bank in Bolgatanga on Monday, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Bank, Mr Edward Lamptey, stated that the bank had distinguished itself in the banking industry within the country and beyond.

He said the bank, which had among its key goals of empowering Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to grow, had been registered by the Bank of Ghana and its operations were strictly supervised.

The CEO indicated that the bank would exploit the huge business and economic potentials of the Region and continue to roll out its financial literacy programmes for SMEs in the Region to help them grow their businesses.

Nana Yaw Oduro, Board Chairman of the Bank, said unlike other financial institutions that were shying away from supporting the growth of the Agriculture sector, the First Allied Bank this year went into partnership with the USAID-FINGAP and the Development Credit Authority in Washington, to guarantee the value-chain financing of agribusiness, especially those engaged in rice, maize and soya beans production in the northern ecological zones of the country.

“Again we have introduced a Micro Loan Insurance Scheme, which guarantees business continuity for customers on the occurrence of a risk event,” the Board Chairman indicated.

He said the Bank had an asset base of over 400 million Ghana cedis and had won local and international awards due to its hard work and mentioned some of them as the Platinum Technology Award for Quality and Best Trade in Italy in 2015, International Star for Leadership award, and retaining its membership of the prestigious Ghana club 100 award.

The Upper East Regional Minister, Mr James Zuugah Tiigah, who lauded the Bank for opening a branch in the Region, appealed to it to support the Region which is an agro-based economy to help improve upon the livelihoods of the people.

He told the management of the Bank that the Bank had been strategically located near the Bolgatnaga market, where the Municipal Assembly had gone into Public-Private Partnership initiative with SMEs that would be their target group.

The Regional Minister impressed upon the Branch Manager to build strong relationship with is customers and expressed the optimism that with the Bank’s presence in the Municipality, it would ginger significant economic activities.