The Sekyere Rural Bank at Jamasi in the Sekyere South District, made significant progress by increasing its profit before tax by 28 per cent.

Dr. Francis Denteh, Chairman of the Board of Directors, told the shareholders at its 31st meeting at Kronom in the Suame Municipality that despite the challenges in the banking industry, the bank was able to record GHC1, 491,962.00 in profit before tax in 2019 as against GHC1, 170,166.00 recorded in 2018.

He said the impressive performance was partly due to the twenty percent increase in investment of the bank from GH¢39,184,026.00 in 2018 to GH¢47,204,317.00 in 2019.

Dr. Denteh said the bank's total assets also increased from GH¢90,547,208.00 in 2018 to GH¢102,838,049.00 in 2019, representing a 14 per cent increase.

The Bank further observed an increase of 14 percent total deposits of GH¢88,530,122.00 in 2019 as against GH¢75,888,035.00 in the 2018 financial year.

Mr. Michael Aidoo, the General Manager of the Bank, said in spite of the depreciation of the Ghanaian Cedi by 12.9 percent in 2019 as against 8.4 percent in 2018, the Bank recorded nine percent increase of loan and advances from GH¢25,308,635.00 in 2018 to GH¢27,605,988.00 in 2019.

He said the Bank recorded a marginal increase of its stated capital from GH¢2,115,798.00 in 2017 to GH¢2,135,788.00 in 2018 as well as marginal increase of one percent of GH¢2,158,008.00 in 2019.

Mr Aidoo said though the Bank exceeded the minimum capital requirement of the Bank of Ghana's GH¢1,000,000.00, it still required shareholders to push up its stated capital as a proactive measure since the regulator might decide to increase the minimum capital requirement at any time and unexpectedly.

He said the Bank invested GH¢5,000.00 in its corporate social responsibilities in the areas of education and other community initiated projects in its operational areas.