The South Akim Rural Bank made a net profit of GHC423,539.00 last year, a 17 per cent rise improvement over that of 2008.
The bank also increased its total assets from GHC7,890,700, in 2008,to GHC11, 059, 961, which is 40 per cent over that of 2008.
This was announced by the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the bank, Mr William Kwadwo Boateng, at the 25th annual general meeting of the bank, at Nankese, in the Eastern Region, at the weekend.
The bank recorded only an increase of six percent in interest on loans to customers last year, as compared to 51 per cent in 2008, a situation the board chairman described as not encouraging.
He attributed the situation to computerization and re-training of staff
as well as additional re-current cost to sustain its operations.
Mr Boateng assured that the bank would improve upon the situation this year and apologized to customers who applied for loans and were turned down and urged them to re-apply this year.
Mr Boateng said the bank was among the few rural banks now operating fully on the Globus eMerge, which is a technological way of improving
banking transactions and checking fraud.
The board chairman said the bank awarded 13 scholarships to candidates to pursue senior high school education, last year, which brings to 78, the total number of beneficiaries under the scheme, since it started in 2003.
He said lack of qualified candidates remained the biggest challenge to the scheme and appealed to parents and guardians to support their children to meet the minimum aggregate of 15 for public schools and six for private schools at the Basic Education Certificate Examination to enjoy the scheme.
The chairman said the bank would continue to pursue its staff and human resource development agenda to ensure that staff turnover was maintained at its current low level.
The District Chief Executive for Suhum Kraboa Coaltar, Mr Samuel Fleisher- Kwabi, commended the bank for living up to expectation in terms of its
general performance.
He expressed concerned about security situation and attacks on banks by armed robbers in recent times and entreated the bank to tighten its security in all the branches.