Total assets of the country’s 139 rural and communities banks (RCBs) shot up to GHc2.4 billion in October this year, representing a 17.8% growth over the previous year’s figure of GHc1.98 billion.

Mr Raymond Amanfu, Head, Other Financial Institutions Supervision Department, Bank of Ghana (BoG), who announced this, said these were funded mainly by deposits, borrowings and reserves.

He put the RCB sub-sector’s contribution to the total assets of the banking industry at 3.4%.

He was addressing the 31st Annual General Meeting of the Atwima Mponua Rural Bank Limited at Toase.

Mr Amanfu, while saluting the banks for their tremendous contribution to the economic development of the nation through their intermediation activities, expressed discomfort with the high ratio of their non-performing loans.

This currently stands at 11.68%, something he described “as quite worrying,” and said that needed to be reduced.

He again raised concern about some major lapses that continued to occur in the operations of the RCBs despite several initiatives taken to address them.

He cited the opening of agencies without the BoG’s approval, especially in the urban centres, often leading to the use of depositors’ funds.

Added to this, he said, was the poor management systems arising from poor documentation appraisal and monitoring, which had resulted in the high non-performing ratio in many of the banks.

Mr Amanfu again touched on the issue of directors granting credit to themselves at concessionary interest rate --- a breach of the banking law, and he underlined the resolve of the BoG as regulator to make sure all licensed institutions operated within the rules and laws governing their operations.

“We would not tolerate violations of the laws as offenders would be appropriately sanctioned.”

Mr Benedict Kwasi Afrane, the Board Chairman, said despite the challenging business environment - inflation hitting 17% - and matters compounded by the energy crisis, the bank was able to achieve a 15.14% growth.

Its deposits rose to GHc24,218,236.29 from the previous total of GHc21,034,044.56.

He said at the same time, loans and advances went up from GHc11,675,354.69 to GHc12,733,238.07.

There was also significant increase in its investments from GHc5,449,387.66 to GHc8,309,387.66.

Mr Afrane announced a profit before tax of GHc1,130,077.31 compared to the previous year’s figure of GHc1,000,344.35 on its operations during the period.