Managing Director of CalBank, Frank Adu Jnr., has won the prestigious African Banker of the Year at an award ceremony held at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa.

In addition to this recognition, Frank Adu Jnr. was also inducted into Africa’s CEOs Hall of Fame for 2018 for his sterling role in shaping the banking industry.

A citation accompanying the award read: “From the classroom to the boardroom, Frank Adu Jnr., the Managing Director, CalBank Ghana is no stranger to strategy and strategic thinking. He has no doubt deployed his managerial prowess towards repositioning CalBank to respond to the growing and ever changing face of banking-largely driven by technology.”

Mr. Adu, in appreciating the award, assured that CalBank will continue to invest in productive sectors of the economy.

“From our balance sheet, our loan portfolio will show you that around 70percent of our loan book is actually medium to long term loans financing the real estate sector, manufacturing and projects not in trade, not in the business of importing products from China to be sold in our economy.

We invest in industry, manufacturing, energy, education and in infrastructure. We have built a US$51million Off Dock Container Terminal at the Takoradi Harbour, one of Ghana’s harbours, which has helped to decongest the port thereby creating room for ease and speed of doing business in Ghana.

We also heavily invest in the transport sector. Clearly, given our size we are punching above our weight in the area of the economy where productivity impacts positively on GDP growth,” he said.

Mr. Adu added that as the use of digital technology and smart phones expands in emerging markets such as Ghana, CalBank as a matter of strategy has postured itself to take full advantage of this burgeoning segment to expand our customer base and provide high quality service.

“As a strategy, CalBank’s focus is reliant on electronic and alternative delivery channels (ADC) contrary to brick and mortar structures. For this reason, we invest heavily in building a robust IT infrastructure that will enable the bank to reach across the nation.

First, we have deployed over 100 ATMs across the nation in areas of high population density to serve the people there. We also have the Internet Banking and our Mobile Apps which are accessible to customers who are IT savvy.

For such customers who are not, we developed the USSD shortcode *771# where customers without internet access can easily access their banking services. This USSD enables our customers to connect their Mobile Money Wallets to their bank accounts, so that wherever they are and at any time, they can easily transfer funds from their accounts into their wallets and cash out. With this service, the bank doesn’t have to be everywhere.

To further expand our service delivery to the unbanked sectors of the country, CalBank partnered with IFC to introduce our Agency Banking franchise. Here, we are deploying about 1,400 agents across the nation to provide such services as banking and savings, microloans, micro insurance, provision of loyalty programs etc.

Finally, our financial inclusion projects also include ensuring that we increase our partnership with the Telecommunications offering mobile money services as we intensify our provision of mobile banking,” he added.

Organised by the African Leadership Magazine, other winners on the night were Marc Ravalomanana, Former President of Madagascar; Bethlehem Tilahum Alemu, Founder soleRebels from Ethiopia and Suzan Mashibe, Executive Director, Tanjet Aviation from Tanzania as the co-winners of the African Female Leader of the Year 2017; and Joel Macharia, Founder/CEO, Abacus Kenya as the ALM Young Person of the Year 2017.