Mr. Daniel Wilson Addo, Managing Director of Consolidated Bank Ghana Ltd. (CBG), says the GHS2.5 billion received recently from the government is making the Bank more resilient to support economic stability while aiding more Small and Medium-sized Enterprises to grow.
“In the immediate future, CBG will deepen investment in digitization, provide upscale support to SMEs, and further prioritize customer service and operational efficiency,” he said.
“The overriding ambition is to build market leadership in SME financing while building a resilient institution.”
Mr Addo said this at a media engagement with editors on Tuesday in Accra.
“To position the Bank for further growth and to restore balance sheet resilience, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) recently provided GHS2.5 billion in capital to the Bank,” he explained.
“It [CBG] is, therefore, ideally positioned to continue its growth trajectory and, most importantly, to continue to make a positive impact on the economy,” Mr. Addo emphasized.
He stated that the Bank had already provided some GHS 1.6 billion in loans to more than 5,600 businesses through innovative programs, including the ‘CBG SME Adesua Series’ and optimizing loan processing for swift access.
The initiatives in the SME sector earned the Bank various awards, including the ‘Euromoney Award for SME Market Leadership in 2022 and 2023.
“In the Corporate and Institutional Banking segment, CBG has participated in loans totalling GHS2.35 billion, either as a lead arranger or transaction advisor, benefiting crucial sectors such as energy, tourism, and agriculture,” Mr. Addo said.
CBG He announced that he was working towards providing more assistance to the agricultural sector through a partnership between the Ghana Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (GIRSAL) and Development Bank Ghana (DBG).
That, he explained, was aimed at “moving Ghana’s agriculture forward, and this is what CBG, GIRSAL, and DBG are committed to.”
“In the next three years, the key thing for us is to build resilience and efficiency—to have structures in place to manage risks, recover when the operating environment is turbulent, state-of-the-art equipment, and a well-motivated staff,” he said.
Recounting the Bank’s five-year journey, Mr. Addo explained that CBG had survived difficult circumstances to post an impressive performance by building trust and providing a positive customer experience, among other values.
“We started under difficult circumstances; there was a lack of trust because we were taken over by banks that were insolvent, but we quickly got to the hard work of putting everything together to correct those mistakes,” he said.
Total assets had increased from GHS6.9bn in 2019 to GHS13.2bn as of December 2023, while customer deposits increased from GHS5.1bn in 2019 to GHS10.4bn in December 2023, the Managing Director stated.
“Despite the challenges of the 2023 Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP), high inflation, and exchange rate volatility, we still grew deposits by GHS2.6bn year-on-year, and that’s an indication of the resilience and structure we put together for the business,” he noted.
On the Bank’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Mr. Addo said CBG provided GHS1 million to support the government’s COVID-19 efforts and built facilities for some educational and health institutions across the country.
It is working towards providing significant support to women-led businesses, pro-youth enterprises, and environmental sustainability initiatives, among others.
