Microfinance
firms in Kumasi are recording high withdrawal rates as clients take
precautionary measures to protect their savings.
This
has been necessitated by liquidity challenges faced by some multi-branch firms in
the past few weeks.
“We’ve
seen huge withdrawals in member companies and this can’t continue; there should
be a way out… We keep prompting ourselves that the more you branch the riskier
it becomes and you also lose hold of control over your operations”, noted Collins
Amponsah Mensah, National Chairman of the Ghana Association of Microfinance
Companies (GAMC).
The
public apathy has been attributed to the lack of safety nets to protect
depositors when firms collapse or are shut by the regulator, the Bank of Ghana.
Abdulai
Rabi, for instance, was promised a 10% interest rate on a three month fixed
deposit product with Royal Winners Financial Services, one of the firms in
distress.
He
now fears losing his Gh₵25,800 investment. Abdulai has petitioned the Bank of
Ghana as efforts to get a refund of his deposit have been futile.
The
GAMC is looking forward to signing Memoranda of Understanding with the Bank of
Ghana “where the regulator will assign responsibilities to us, so that we can
play part of their supervisory and oversight role for them and they also
support us to put in the right structures and systems to be able to support
that assigned role and responsibility”.
Mr.
Amponsah Mensah says such mandate would empower the GAMC to aid the regulator
to inject disciple and sanity in the microfinance industry.
Story
by Kofi Adu Domfeh
1 comment:
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