Agona Rural Bank shows sterling performance in 2023
The Agona Rural Bank with its headquarters at Agona Kwanyako, made remarkable strides as it increased its total assets from GHC 21, 624, 121.00 in 2022, to GHC 26,604,992.00 in the 2023 financial year.
Customers’ deposits also experienced significant growth from GHC 18,132,384.00 in 2022 to against GHC 23,009,708.00 in 2023 in the year under review.
Mr James Kojo Buabeng, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank announced this at the 37th Annual General Meeting of the shareholders at Kwanyako in the Agona East District of the Central Region.
He said the Bank’s investments further saw marginal growth from GHC 8,353, 742.00 in 2022 to GHC 8,786, 422.00 in the 2023 operational year.
The Chairman said the Bank made a negative growth of 23.72 per cent of profit before tax with GHC 92,689.00 in 2023, compared to GHC 214, 784.00 in 2022.
This occurred because of the impact of the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) entered by the government.
The Chairman explained that the total gross loans and advances the Bank gave out to customers grew from GHC 8,995,145.00 in 2022 to GHC 13,221,783.00 in the 2023 financial year.
Mr Buabeng said the Bank’s share capital had not been able to meet the GHC one million capital requirement demanded by the Bank of Ghana (BOG), adding that as of December 31, 2023, the bank’s capital level was GHC 872,511.00.
This, the Chairman said was short of minimum capital of GHC127,489.00 before meeting the full requirement the BOG.
He, therefore, made a passionate appeal to all shareholders to procure more shares as part of the efforts by the Board and Executive Management to meet the maximum share capital.
Mr Buabeng said the Bank’s future was bright looking at the gains it had made in its five years strategic operations.
Major Retired Ben Donkor, former Board chairman of Agona Rural Bank said the catchment areas of the Bank was having robust business environment and commended the Board and Management for the resilient work that had made significant growth in the past years.
He added his voice to appeals to the shareholders to buy more shares to enable the Bank to meet its share capital requirement demanded by BOG.
Mr Philip Lovemore Amedofu, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Agona Rural Bank limited said the management of the Bank was working around the clock to explore more financial avenues to increase the financial fortunes of the Bank.
He said it had put up very splendid performance in the previous years but indicated that the performance of the 2024 operations had exceeded the previous years.
The CEO said Management had decided to rollout more internal mechanisms that would help it to maximise more financial prospects, adding that plans were afoot to move from community information centers to showcase its products to residents in the catchment areas.
Mr Amedofu called on the shareholders, corporate bodies, NGOs, local and foreign investors to buy shares as part of the efforts to increase capital investments of the Bank.
GNA
AT/CAA
11 Nov. 2024
