Elsie Addo Awadzi, Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, has disclosed that the savings and loans sub-sector contributed 35.1 percent of the total assets of the specialized deposit-taking institutions sector in the first quarter of 2022.
Mrs. Addo Awadzi, commended the savings and loans sector for its significant role in the economy. She also lauded the impact of the Ghana Association of Savings and Loans Companies (GHASALC) on the performance of the Savings and Loans sector.
“At the end of the first quarter of 2022, total assets of the specialized deposit taking institutions sector was about GHS16 billion. Of this, savings and loans sub-sector contributed 35.1 percent discount of these total assets.”
Elsie Addo Awadzi
Mrs. Addo Awadzi moreover, indicated the savings and loans sub-sector also did well in granting of loans to the private enterprises. This, she alluded, will contribute to the growth of the economy.
“The S&L sector had also disbursed about GHS3.4 billion in net loans to private enterprises also in the same period. You serve a client base of 7.3 million in Ghana, that’s about a fourth of the population of Ghana so you’re quite a significant player in our financial system and in our economy as a whole.”
Elsie Addo Awadzi
The Security in the S&L Sector Must be Paramount
That notwithstanding, the Second Deputy Governor called on the sector to increase its security to reduce the incident of fraud in the sector.
Meanwhile, it can be recalled that Recent data from the Bank of Ghana proved that the value of losses recorded as a result of fraud in banks and specialized-deposit taking institutions in 2021 jumped by 144 percent to clock 61million cedis compared to 25 million cedis recorded in the previous year.
In a reaction to this, the Second Deputy Governor asserted that it’s not encouraging that there should be an increase in fraudulent activities. However, she acknowledged that “In any case, we are in an era where people are continuously looking for ways get into the systems and as we expand, the space is prone to these kind of risks.”
Similar sentiment was recently shared by the Executive Secretary of GHASALC, Tweneboah Kodua Boakye, who indicated that it remains a priority for his outfit to implement measures to prevent such happenings in the savings and loans sector.
The Executive Secretary of GHASALC intimated that GHASALC would continue to make sure that it improves on its operations to make sure that customers’ funds are very safe with S&L.
In the intervening time, the Ghana Association of Savings and Loans Company has pledged its commitment to ensuring safety and security for the funds of its customers.
The Executive Secretary of the Ghana Association of Savings and Loans Companies, further noted that education must be one of the topmost priorities in order to defeat the situation. “We think that the more we do customer education and sensitisation, the more we will reduce these fraudulent acts.”
