Mr Gary Armah, Head of Agency Banking at Ecobank Ghana, has disclosed the total amount needed to set up one bank branch in the country runs into millions of dollars.

According to the Head of Agency Banking, for a bank to establish a branch anywhere in Ghana, it will require not less than 3million dollars to do that.

Mr. Armah made these comments when speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a two-day workshop held for members of the Journalists for Business Advocacy (JBA) that was sponsored by Ecobank Ghana, in Accra.

Mr Armah indicated that due to the high cost involved in establishing branches, Ecobank is heavily relying on the agency banking to get its services spread across the country.

“As I explained earlier, for a bank, in terms of cost, the average cost of setting up a branch, adding up everything together including staff cost or the little cost involved over time and everything, roughly it will cost you more than 3 million dollars.”
Mr Gary Armah

The Cost of Setting Up ATM

Moreover, Mr Armah disclosed that to have a fully functional Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), it also costs a lot to set up a single ATM. He explains that due to the heavy cost of setting up a branch and ATM, Ecobank is trying to use different approach to achieve the same results.

“For you to have an ATM in an obscure area, if you manage to set up all the things that you need in order to work with, you are looking at about 40,000 to 55,000 dollars in that respect.

“So, for us at Ecobank, our approach in doing this agency business is to first of all, try and get the unbanked, the underbanked and also to bring convenience to our already banked. One of the easiest approaches for us, in terms of spreading across the country and reducing the cost of establishing branches in the country is Agency Banking.”
Mr Gary Armah

The Head of Agency Banking at Ecobank Ghana highlighted some benefits of Agency Banking. He thus, indicated that the Bank usually impresses upon business men to help them undertake some of the projects.

“It helps us to go in to the hinterlands where on the normal we cannot set up branches due to the cost and business feasibilities that we do and see that we might not be able to recoup the cost we put in there. The best option for us to partner third parties to do some of these transactions for us.

“It also helps educating the people in these areas, bringing convenience to their door step, bridging the knowledge gap in their financial transactions, understanding the services available as well as getting to them to be within that space where they get to add on directly to the economy in supporting this country.”
Mr Gary Armah