He said it was crucial for the Bank to strengthen its commitment to Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) and cushion them against crisis within the banking industry in recent times.  “Due to the … changes being introduced by the Bank of Ghana, the ARB Apex Bank and the RCBs have been strategizing to reposition themselves as relevant players in rural financial intermediation,” he stated.

 Mr Mattah was addressing the Bank’s 17th Annual Managers Conference in Ho, which was on the theme: “Rendering Service with Passion; a Panacea for Competitive Advantage”, which attracted technical advisors from all RCBs to make them ready for the challenge through series of training modules.

The Managing Director said as part of the restructuring, seasoned consultants had been engaged to equip executives with contemporary strategies, whiles its staff stock had also been enhanced by experienced hands, expected to boost its operations.

Mr Mattah called on RCBs to present a united front, and fall on their network of branches for market advantage.   “Let us continue to work together as RCBs by eschewing the concept of seeing ourselves as working silos. Let us rather pool every special insight we can muster and forge a united front to enable us to work together,” he said.

Mr Mattah called for “passion” in serving clients, saying “today’s customers are spoilt for choice because they have a multiplicity of service offerings to choose from. “Let us as RCBs, strive to offer unique and more value-added services to our customers in order to exceed their expectations. It is more expensive to raise new customers than to maintain existing ones,” he added.

Mrs Comfort Owusu, Executive Director of the Association of Rural Banks, said the Association was collaborating with the GIZ and the ARB on risk management and fraud detection training in 2019, and would include training on Corporate Governance for Directors, General Managers and Chief Executives.

She appealed to Government to expedite the review process of the 25 per cent Corporate Tax on RCBs, which she said was affecting their performance.