Daniel Addo, Managing Director of CBG
The Managing Director of Consolidated Bank Ghana Ltd (CBG), Daniel Wilson Addo, says the GHC2.5 billion received recently from the government is making the bank more resilient to support economic stability while aiding more Small and Medium-sized Enterprises to grow.
To this end, “in the immediate future, CBG would deepen investment in digitisation, upscale support to SMEs, further prioritise customer service, and operational efficiency. The overriding ambition is to build market leadership in SME financing while building a resilient institution.”
During a media engagement with editors in Accra, Mr Daniel Addo disclosed that his outfit has already provided some GHC1.6bn in loans to more than 5,600 businesses through innovative programmes, including the ‘CBG SME Adesua Series ’ and optimising loan processing for swift access.
The initiatives in the SME sector earned the Bank various awards, including ‘Euromoney Award for SME Market Leadership in 2022 and 2023.
“In the Corporate and Institutional Banking segment, CBG has participated in loans totalling GHS2.35 billion, either as lead arranger or transaction advisor, benefiting crucial sectors such as energy, tourism, and agriculture,” he said.
Initiatives
CBG he, announced, was working towards providing more assistance to the agricultural sector through a partnership between Ghana Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (GIRSAL) and Development Bank Ghana (DBG).
That, he explained, was aimed at “moving Ghana’s agriculture forward, and this is CBG, GIRSAL, and DBG are committed to.”
“In the next three years, the key thing for us is to build resilience and efficiency – have structures in place to manage risks, recover when the operating environment is turbulent, state-of-the art equipment, and a well-motivated staff,” he said.
Recounting the Bank’s five-year journey, Mr Addo explained that CBG had survived difficult circumstances to post an impressive performance through building trust, and providing positive customer experience, among other values.
“We started under difficult circumstances; there was lack of trust because we were taken over banks that were insolvent, but we quickly got to the hard work of putting everything together in correcting those mistakes,” Mr Daniel Addo said.
Achievements
Total assets had increased from GHC6.9bn in 2019 to GHC13.2bn as of December 2023, while customer deposits increased from GHC5.1bn in 2019 to GHC10.4bn in December 2023, the Managing Director stated.
“Despite the challenges of 2023 – Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP), high inflation, exchange rate volatility, we still grew deposits by GHS2.6bn year-on-year, and that’s an indication of the resilience and structure we put together for the business,” he noted.
On the bank’s corporate social responsibility, Mr Addo said CBG provided GHC1m to support the government’s COVID-19 efforts, and built facilities for some educational and health institutions across the country.
It is working towards providing significant support to women-led businesses, pro-youth enterprises, and environmental sustainability initiatives, among others.
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