In addition, its operating income grew from GH¢4.885 million to GH¢5.750 over the period; a 17.67 per cent growth.

The bank also recorded a significant growth of 21.06 per cent in its total deposits –GH¢24,908,741 in 2022 compared to GH¢20,576,062 in 2021. 

It posted a profit-after-tax of GH¢274,722.

“These indications show how resilient the bank is and the good fortunes and opportunities that await us in 2023 and beyond,” the Chairman of the Board, Dr John Kofi Mensah, said in his report at the 40th Annual General Meeting of the bank.

Benchmarks 

He said the bank maintained the required benchmarks for capital adequacy ratio, primary and secondary reserves, among others, through the 2022 accounting year.

The board chairman said the opening of an outlet at Mankessim had improved the bank’s deposits mobilisation and also made it easy serving its cherished customers in the catchment area, adding that “there are plans to open new branches within the region to meet the increasing demand of customers”

Dr Mensah said the board considered the bank’s performance for the year-ended December 31, 2022 and thus recommended the payment of GH¢109.888.80 as dividend to shareholders after approval from the Bank of Ghana.

“We shall in the ensuing year ensure operational efficiency, motivate our staff, grant quality loans, intensity deposits mobilisation, reduce cost and ultimately increase profit to maximise shareholders wealth,” he said.

On the way forward, he said the focus on recovery of non-performing loans was key and that the bank had instituted measures to strengthen loan monitoring and collections. 

Commendation 

In address read on his behalf, the Managing Director of the ARB Apex Bank, Alex Kwasi Awuah, commended the board, management and staff for the modest gains made during the period.

Worthy of mention, he said was the growth in the bank’s loan book by 26.13 per cent, and that “this is great because loans remain the most important avenue for growing interest income for the rural and community banks (RCBs)”

That, he said, called for directors and management to remain focused on developing and selling products targeted at small, medium, micro, enterprises (MSMEs) and individual businesses in the communities since the MSMEs would expand to become giants in the future.

“We are also happy to read that Enyan Denkyira Rural Bank made a profit-after-tax of GH¢274,722. Although this is a modest profit, it puts the bank in the league of the few RCBS which remain profitable even in the face of the unending economic challenges.

“It is our expectation that this year’s profit is a precursor to the good things that await the bank next year,” he said.

Mr Awuah was confident that the bank would continue to improve the value of shareholders investments.

He urged the shareholders and members of the communities to continue to support the bank by purchasing additional shares to help it to bank its operations.

He indicated that the ARB Apex Bank would continue to support RCBs to ensure that they continued to return improved value to the shareholders, saying that “in this regard, the ARB Apex Bank is working very hard to actualise our much-awaited agency, mobile and internet banking project to ease the pressure on our banks and provide the needed convenience and leverage to our esteemed customers”

Together with RCBs, he said they were currently testing the USSD Banking Solution which would soon go live as soon as all the challenges in the test environment had been rectified.

“We would like to assure RCBs and their esteemed customers to anticipate the launch of the USSD, internet and mobile banking solutions soon. These projects when launched would bring a major revolution to how the RCBs conduct business with their customers,” he said.