Rural and Community banking was conceptualized at a time when access to bank credit for farmers and traders, especially in rural areas was inadequate.
From 30 rural banks in the 1980s, Rural Banks now have 145 of such institutions with a branch network of over 800 spreads across the 16 regions of the country. Currently, RCBs have over 6.5 million customers which affirms their positive and remarkable impact on financial inclusion.
The new era of Rural Banking has the introduction of Corporate Governance as one of its critical success factors.
It has been observed by Banking and Corporate Governance Experts that, corporate failures have had their roots in poor corporate governance.
Typical examples include the global financial crises of 2007/08, the mass corporate failures in Ghana’s banking and securities sector in the last few years where there was a demise of 420 institutions licensed by the Bank of Ghana and several fund management companies licensed by the security and exchange commission.
To help promote robust corporate governance practices in the rural banking sector, the Bank of Ghana issued a Corporate Governance Directive.
Per the directive, the maximum tenure of office of Directors was 9 years while that of the office of board chairperson is 6 years.
It is worth mentioning that, some Directors have served on the board for over two decades and this directive was a game changer.
The directive also seeks to ensure that, people appointed as directors possess appropriate experiences, competencies, qualifications and good qualities, including professionalism and integrity.
Strong Management And Adoption Of Digital Banking Channels
The operations of rural banks were initially fraught with weak management as a result of their inability to attract and retain qualified and suitable personnel due to several reasons.
However, in recent times, the industry can boast of strong management with impressive academic and professional qualifications, as well as wealth of experience like their counterpart in the universal banking sector.
In a similar way, Mr Frederick Ampomah Amaning who is the Head of Audit of the Aemfiman Rural bank holds EMBA, ACCA, ICAG, IIA and Diploma in Forensic Auditing with a wealth of banking experience.
According to the Head of Finance and Operations at Aemfiman Rural Bank, Mr. Evans Aikins, among other things, the quality of management team of the bank has made a bigger impact on its performance over the years.
The banking industry in Ghana has undergone a paradigm shift evolving from manual banking to meeting the digital and personalized banking needs of existing and potential customers.
Most RCBs have deployed modern and value-added technology tools such as ATMs, Mobile Banking, among others to give customers real convenience and comfort.
Customers of such RCBs can therefore transact their banking business anywhere and anytime without the need to visit the brick-and-mortar branch in person.
Atwima Kwanwoma Rural Bank in the Ashanti Region has recently introduced AKRBank Mobile App to offer convenient and expeditious banking services to delight its loyal customers.
In addition, Rural banks have increasingly improved their service quality delivery so as to remain competitive and also delight their customers to foster loyalty and positive word of mouth communication.
Finally, the capacity building programme regularly provided by the ARB Apex Bank PLC and the Association of Rural Banks in areas such as customer care, customer relationship management and customer service management to staff of rural banks has also impacted on service quality delivery.
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