The package is under the GCB SME Loan Suite Scheme focused on growing SMEs into home-grown multinationals.

Other facilities in the suite are bridge loan for all businesses requiring short-term financing and urgent support; term loan customised secure loan for fixed tenor repayable in 36 months; overdraft; contingent liability, guarantees issued on behalf of customers and line of credit and a standby facility for businesses to be used within a specified period.

Delegate’s conference

The Managing Director of the bank, Mr Ernest Mawuli Agbesi, announced these schemes at the fourth quadrennial delegate’s conference of the Professional and Managerial Staff Union (PMSU) of the GCB Bank in Ho.

The theme of the conference was “Supporting the Development  of SMEs for Economic Growth—The role of  officers of the GCB Bank Limited.”

He said as a Ghanaian bank there was the need to support domestic companies with the view to nurturing them to bolster the economy and to become competitors at the international level and added that GCB’s products and services were SME friendly.

Mr Agbesi said SMEs contributed greatly to the development of any nation and that in Ghana it provided about 85 per cent of manufacturing and employment and contributed 49 per cent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2012.

He stated that SMEs accounted for 90 per cent of existing businesses in the country and contributed to employment creation, provision of basic goods and services and generation of export and tax revenues for national socio-economic development.

He said the bank had introduced three strategic policies aimed at repositioning it and improving performance as Ghana’s number one and largest bank and that included the extension of banking hours from 8.30 a.m. to 5 p.m., the resumption of Saturday banking in 23 selected branches and rigorous deposit mobilisation by all staff of the bank.

Mr Agbesi urged the staff to put the interest of the bank above all others and to propel GCB Bank into the limelight because GCB understood the language of SMEs and had the expertise in managing SMEs in all sectors.

Achievements of PMSU

In his address, the Chairman of PMSU of GCB Bank, Mr Dominic Cobbinah, said over 800 members of staff were promoted after a constructive engagement with the board and that affected persons had been on their grades for over eight years.

He said the union had fought for the restoration of 50 per cent rent allowance to branch managers and an appreciable increase in staff rent allowance from five per cent to 15 per cent.

He added that the role of SMEs in an economy could not be overemphasised because they constituted the vast majority of businesses in the country and over the years had evolved to become the key supplier and provider of services to a large proportion of the populace.

Mr Cobbinah, therefore, said providing support for the sector would go a long way to help economic growth and the achievement of one of the reasons which led to the establishment of the bank in 1953.