The South Birim Rural Bank recovered from a loss of GH¢2,276,561 in 2019 to post a net profit of GH¢189,104 in 2020.

During the same period, the bank — with its headquarters at Akyem Achiase in the Eastern Region — granted loans and advances of GH¢10,898,237 as against the GH¢9,853,429 it granted in 2019, representing an increase of 11 per cent.

The bank’s total assets also grew from GH¢32,056,714 in 2019 to GH¢44,141,146 in 2020.

The Chairperson of the bank, Mrs. Bernadette Addo-Dankwa, announced this at the bank’s 36th Annual General Meeting at Akyem Achiase.
She stated that the bank’s deposits shot up from GH¢31,292,070 in 2019 to GH¢40,888,477 in 2020, with an increase of GH¢9.5 million, representing 31 per cent.

Mrs. Addo-Dankwa said the bank’s investment of GH¢2 million, which was locked up with the Heritage Security, had been recovered.

The Board Chairperson said in recognition of the importance of technology in the banking sector, the bank offered services such as ATM, e-zwich, money transfers, Apex links, and mobile money transfer.

She commended fellow board members, the management and staff of the bank for their hard work, sacrifices, time, efforts and expertise to make the bank succeed.

Impressive profit

The Managing Director of the ARB Apex Bank, Mr. Alex Awuah, in an address read on his behalf by Nana Frimpong Diadom I, the Eastern Regional Manager of the Apex Bank, commended the board, management and staff of the South Birim Rural Bank for working to recover from the previous year’s loss to record “an impressive profit” in 2020.

He said in view of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had had an impact on businesses all over the world, rural and community banks (RCBs) became more creative and innovative in their approach to meet the needs of their customers.

Financial technology

“The RCBs must also look for value added products, especially because most of the services they could only receive in the past at our brick and mortal locations are now being provided by financial technology (Fintech) and telecommunications firms,” Mr. Awuah stated.

He said the ARB Apex Bank had introduced mobile banking for RCB customers, meaning that every RCB customer could now have their account numbers to enable them to move money from their phone wallets to their account numbers with RCBs and vice versa.

Mr. Awuah stated that the ARB Apex Bank would kick start agency banking this year to provide superior customer experience by bringing banking to the doorsteps of customers to have a convenient banking experience.

The Akyem Achiasehene, Daasebre Gyenin Kantan, who was the guest speaker at the function, praised the board, management and staff of the bank for being disciplined to have achieved success for the bank.

He urged the board to liaise with the Jungle Warfare School at Achiase to provide adequate security whenever they were transferring money to their agents to ward off armed robbers from attacking the bullion vans.