It also recorded a growth in its total asserts by 11.92 percent rising from GHC 35,779,035 in 2017 to GHC 40, 043,107 in 2018.

Mr Samuel Dodd, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank, made this known at the 29th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the bank at Awutu Bawjiase in the Central region.

He said the bank is currently ranked number five out of the 144 Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) in Ghana by ARB APEX Bank in its Quarterly Efficiency Monitoring Unit report as at March, 2019.

He said the total deposits of the bank also rose to GHC 27,973,541 in 2018 from GHC 24, 936,687 in the previous year, representing 12 percent growth.

The Board Chairman said loans and advances granted to customers during 2018 amounted to GHC 43, 280,712 as compared to GHC 38, 264, 950 in 2017.

He said the total operational income increased from GHC 7,317,601 in 2017 to GHC 7,964,532 representing an increase of 8.8 percent.

Mr Dodd said as part of a strategy to continuously improve upon the capital of the bank, its Board of Directors have proposed a transfer of GHC 100,000 to the stated capital of the bank to be distributed as bonus shares in proportion to each shareholder's existing shareholding in addition to the dividend to be paid.

He said the Directors have proposed the payment of GHC 400,000 as dividend which represents a growth of 11 percent from 2017's total dividend payment of GHC 360,000.

Mr Dodd assured the shareholders that the bank was strong and resilient and has met all the requirements by the Bank of Ghana (BOG) and is amongst the strongest Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) in the country.

Mr Curtis W.  Brantuo, Head, Legal and Compliance of ARB Apex Bank, said the APEX Bank has secured an eight million dollar grant from World Bank to roll out  ARB Apex Bank Agency banking module and to supervise Rural and  Community Banks operations

He said the Agency banking module would rope in more than 1,000 agents (or Agency Banks) across the country and it comes with a host of benefits where customers could access myriad of banking services without necessarily walking into banking halls.

Mr Brantuo said the Agency is expected to bring the needed panache and a sense of belonging to the millions of Rural and Community Banks customers to improve their economic benefits.