Two indigeous banks in the country exceled at this year’s edition of the Ghana Banking Awards which has long been dominated by the Nigerian banks. Jessica Acheampong and Rita Adongo report.
UT Bank and uniBank at the weekend stole the show at the 11th edition of the Ghana Banking Awards with sterling performances which enabled them to sweep more than half of the awards.
The achievement of the two banks and some other Ghanaian banks such as Prudential Bank ended the dominance of the Nigerian banks in the country.
UT Bank dethroned two times winner, Guaranty Trust Bank (2009/2010) to become the Bank of the Year for the first time in the 11-year history of the awards.
The bank also emerged as the Best Bank in IT/ Electronic Banking and also lifted the award for Best Bank in Financial Performance category. It was also mentioned as the second runner up in the Best Bank in Corporate Banking category.
uniBank on the other hand swept four awards; best bank in Advisory Services; Best bank in Trade Finance; Best bank in Customer Care and Best bank in Financial Performance.
It was also mentioned as the second runner-up in the Best Bank in Short term Loan Financing category.
Prudential Bank also managed to pick two awards: Best Bank in Medium-Term Loan Financing and Best Bank in Long Term Loan Financing.
Ecobank won the Best Bank in Competitive Pricing; Zenith Bank, Best Bank in Corporate Social Responsibility; Fidelity Bank, Best Growing Bank; and Cal Bank came up as the Best bank in Retail Banking.
Unfortunately, there were no winners in three other categories; Best Bank Export Finance; Best Bank in Agricultural Finance and Best Bank in Product Innovation.
The banks vied for honours in 16 award categories which included the Bank of the Year.
HFC Bank was honoured with a special award for its support in the housing market while Eximguarantee was also mentioned for guaranteeing loans to SMEs.
Later in an interview, the Group Head of Corporate Affairs & Marketing of the bank, Mr Ramie Baitie expressed its resolve to lend more support to the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country to enable them to contribute their right quotas to the growth of the economy.
This, according to him, is in line with the bank’s broad strategy to constantly support its clients with better products and services to meet their needs.
Mr Baitie explained that the bank is privy to what the market and the bank’s clients need and as such “we have positioned ourselves to meet those needs”.
He said 70 per cent of businesses in the country are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), hence efforts to support such businesses was a laudable initiative looking at the economic benefits.
He expressed gratitude to all clients of the bank and assured them of better services adding that the “bank would continue to serve its clients well and let its output be judged”.
The bank was mentioned as first runner in four other major categories; Best bank in Retail Banking; Best bank Customer Service; Best Bank in Advisory Services and Best Bank in Corporate Social Responsibility.
In a separate interview, the Head of Business Development and Sales of uniBank, Mr Richard Osei Anane, told the Graphic Business that the Bank winning four prestigious awards at the ceremony was an indication of an marked improvement of the bank’s performance last year.
He congratulated UT for emerging Bank of the year and said it was a challenge for them to excel and do greater things this year adding that the bank’s focus was to recapitalize to meet the target of the Central Bank.
The Chief Host and Chairman of the Planning Board of the Ghana Banking Awards, Mr Willing Vanderpuije, in his address elaborated on the theme “Leveraging ICT to Transform the Financial Services Sector” and called on the banks to give electronic ease and liberation to all customers for the growth of the economy.
“We call for a concerted and a consistent effort for more enhanced investment by the financial services sector in ICT for quantum leap in service delivery,” he said.
The objective of the banking awards he said was to encourage banks to compete to deliver world class banking services at a competitive rate for the benefit of their customers and for the continuous improvement of the financial services sector of the Ghanaian economy.
The Managing Director of the Graphic Communications Group Limited and chairman for the occasion, Mr Kenneth Ashigbey in his address emphasised the importance of ICT in the financial services sector and stressed the need for banks to firm up their security systems.
The banks, he advised were to overhaul their ICT platforms to make it more secured with the fast growing pace of technology to prevent hackers from hacking into their system.
He also urged businesses to move away from the dollarisation system which was gradually taking over the market.
Speaking on behalf of the Director General of the National Communications Authority, Mr George Nii Ashietey Olenuu said the growth of ICT had presented several opportunities for the financial services sector.
He said with internet banking and SMS services being offered by the banks, customers were able to have easy access to their accounts as well as any other relevant information.
Mr Olenuu also added that with the high rate of internet growth, banks now had networked branches which enabled them to offer more efficient services to their client.
According to him, ICT had transformed the way businesses were done in the country coupled with the large growth of mobile phone users and mobile data subscriptions.
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