Collateral registry comes on board

Ghana’s collateral registry has registered a total of 49,096 charges with 104,308 collaterals since its inception in 2010.
Also, about 160 institutions both foreign and local have accessed the registry for registration while 14,608 searches were conducted by various lending institutions, law firms and the general public.
 Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Henry Kofi Wampah has at the launch of the collateral registry in Accra said the new registry would provide services including the registration of charges and collaterals, provide avenue for lending institutions to conduct searches on registered charges as well as see to the renewal of registrations.
“By the end of March 2013, a total of 49,096 charges with 104,308 collaterals had been registered. Of these, 80.6 per cent were movables assets, 13.3 per cent were immovable assets and the rest consisted of both movable and immovable types,” he said.
According to him, the central bank has worked in collaboration with appropriate government agencies on a number of reformed programmes aimed at improving the efficiency of the country’s financial system.
Dr Wampah also revealed that the registry has attracted significant interest from other sister Central Banks on the continent.
That notwithstanding, the BOG Governor said there were a few challenges which the bank has had to deal with to ensure that the full benefits of secure transaction regimes benefit the economy.
“The most important of these which requires immediate policy focus is the problem of duplication of registration and disjointed records associated with the absence of harmonisation between the collateral registry and other registries,” he explained.
He also advised banks to strengthen their research departments so that their work can inform the comments of their executives on key macroeconomic issues.
He also said “as we officially launch the collateral registry, I wish to assure all stakeholders that the bank will continue to work to improve credit access, which is important for economic growth.”
The collateral registry which was launched with a new logo is aimed at ensuring a prudent credit delivery system in the financial services sector.
The registry, which is the first of its kind in Africa has been established at an opportune time to address some fundamental challenges in the credit system and the economy at large.
The Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Mr Millison Narh in his address said the collateral registry would strengthen the financial markets to ensure improved credit delivery and economic growth at large.
The Minister of finance and Economic Planning, Mr Seth Tekper congratulated BoG for supporting government in its efforts towards promoting macroeconomic stability and sustainable growth of the economy.  
He was optimistic that the collateral registry would enhance transparency and information disclosure in the credit delivery system.