The Governor of Bank of Ghana (BoG) has warned banks to desist from employing people who have been dismissed by some banks for unethical or fraudulent behaviour.
He said it was regrettable that due to shortage of qualified bankers in the country, a number of staff dismissed for unethical or fraudulent behaviour from some banks have found their way back into the banking system and continue to engage in malfeasance.
Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur, who made this known at the launch of the Ghana Association of Bankers� (GAB) Conduct of Business Standards (GABCOBS) in Accra last Friday, said banking thrives on good ethical practice, trust and confidence, stressing that people who fail the integrity test should not be entertained in the banking sector.
�We require that due diligence be carried out on prospective staff in order to ensure that our personnel meet the fit and proper test,� the Central Bank Governor stated.
He said his outfit would be happy to collaborate with banks to create a database of staff that can be consulted before decisions on appointments are made.
Mr Arthur also stated that granting of waivers of single obligor limit to banks to ensure the importation of crude oil and petroleum products could not be continued.
He said the central bank granted those waivers reluctantly in the past because it amounted to abandoning the prudential norms that had been introduced to minimize risks to banks.
�This practice cannot be continued. It should be possible for our banks to grow to enable them finance large transactions or in the event to use syndication as a tool for handling occasional extraordinarily lumpy transactions,� he added.
The 21-paged business code is geared towards voluntary standards of good practice for members of the Association to follow when dealing with member banks in Ghana. It also provides basic guidelines of business practice and professional and personal conducts that are expected to be adopted and upheld by members.
Mr Amissah-Arthur said the code sought to cure a number of potential ills and other anti-competitive practices, including discrimination among banks, abuse of dominance, unfair luring of customers and interference in the business of other banks.
He noted that entrenching ethical business practices was good for the long-term sustainability of the sector and commended the Association for the effort.
�It is important to recognize that the value of the code lies in compliance with its prescriptions. The Association must therefore invest in educating staff, management and boards of banks on policies and actions that can breach the code. The Association must also invest time in monitoring compliance as well as create avenues for redress where there are breaches,� he said.
He said in response to the global financial crisis, the Bank of Ghana established a Financial Stability Department to assess the macro-prudential risks facing the economy and to make suggestions for dealing with them.
�One of the key output of the Financial Stability Department would be the publication of a Financial Stability Review, which will attempt to draw lessons from the systemic risks on our banking and financial system. We intend to share the support with you our stakeholders. It is our hope that all of us would corporate in our pursuit for information for analysis and discussion of the outcome,� he said.
Asare Akuffo, President of GAB, said the growth experienced by the industry over the past five-year period had been phenomenal.
He said the industry had grown from 22 banks in 2006 to 27 banks presently while the number of bank branches had increased from 397 to 703 and total assets had grown by over 130 per cent to GH�17.4 billion in 2010.
He said in 2003 the Association outdoored a Code, which set standards of good practice in the dealings and relations with personal customers, adding that this new code sought to rationalize dealings among member banks.
Mr Asare expressed the hope that members would use the code to improve the standards they might have set for their respective banks and employees.
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