The assessment, which covered the 2018 financial year, saw Standchart, Zenith Bank Ghana, Ecobank Ghana, UBA Ghana and Barclays Bank placing 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th respectively.

The other banks are Societe Generale (6th), Stanbic Ghana (7th), Fidelity Ghana (8th), Access Ghana (9th) and GCB Bank (10th).

A statement issued in Accra by Zenith Bank said all 30 of Ghana's tier one and universal banks were subsequently benchmarked against Credmap's measures, compared to each other, and then ranked in what became the GBCI, a process that was overseen by a team of senior technical analysts at Konfidants, a management consulting company based in Accra, Johannesburg and Geneva.

It said among the remaining 20 banks are CAL Bank, ranked 11th, followed by UMB Bank, Bank of Africa, Bank of Baroda and FBN Bank Ghana at 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th respectively.

The GT Bank placed 16th, FNB, 17th, First Atlantic bank, 18th,GHL Bank, 19th and Republic Bank, 20th.

The statement said some major criteria in the computation of the GBCI included executive track record of the board and management membership, educational qualifications of board members and senior management personnel, as well as emphasis on continuous professional development with the studied banks.

Others are the reputational factors, degree of board independence from shareholder and management control and influence, consistency and accuracy in board management communications as ascertained from comments in the media, advertising, and publications, including official documentation and reports.

It said in the inaugural index, the primary focus, was on the quality of bank boards and senior management personnel.

It said the Konfidants team was of the view that in the wake of recent developments in the banking sector, corporate governance and management competence had emerged as, by far, the most critical factors in determining bank performance and success.

The statement said the analysts were able to more rapidly double check how traditional benchmarks such as net interest margin, capital adequacy, asset quality, return on equity and return on assets conceal or reveal the most salient factors in banking governance and reputation.

The inaugural "credibility-rating" engine is capable of combining crowd-rating and data mining to generate "credibility scores" of individuals and institutions using pooled data about their track record, history, commentary, biography, popular sentiment and reputation.