Societe Generale exit: Ghana's banking sector in fully-fledged crisis – Dr. Atuahene

Richmond Atuahene, has indicated that contrary to what he describes as English, the data on Ghana’s banking sector depict a sector that has been in a state of crisis for the past ten years.

Referring to Ghana’s banking sector's non-performing loans, which have averaged about 16.5% in the past ten years, the banking expert insisted that there was abundant literature from the International Monetary Fund to prescribe a fully-fledged crisis situation for Ghana’s banking sector.

It states that any banking sector that has more than 10% non-performing assets can be described as a fully-fledged banking distress or crisis,” he explained.

Data from Ghana’s Banking Sector performance put year-on-year NPLs at 11% in 2014; 14.7% in 2015; 17.6% in 2016; 22.7% in 2017; 18.2% in 2018; 14.7% in 2019; 15.7% in 2020; 15% in 2021; 15% in 2022, and 24.9% in 2023.

He further revealed that the Ghana Amalgamated Trust, created to advance some transfers to help five banks that survived the banking sector clean-up meet their minimum capital requirements, had rather saddled the banks with high costs of servicing the transfers.

Richmond Atuahene indicated that although it was worrisome that multinational brands, including Glovo, Nivea, Jumia Foods, Game, Bic, and a host of others, had folded up their operations in Ghana in the past three years, the signs were on the wall.

The banking expert challenged the government to go beyond the rosy speeches crafted to soothe political egos and rather take a critical look at the factors chasing out Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) in Ghana.