The Bank of Ghana is proposing an increase in the amount to be paid to depositors who lose their investments to financial institutions under the deposit protection bill.
According to the governor of the central bank the figure must be reviewed upwards to allow confidence in the country’s financial system.
The New bill, Citi Business News has learnt when passed, will only give depositors with universal commercial banks 5,000 cedis in the event of the bank going under while customers with savings and loans, finance houses, microfinance companies among others will receive only 1,000 cedis no matter the amount of money deposited.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament however, Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Henry Kofi Wampah said the figures must be reviewed upwards and pleaded with MP’s to expedite action on the passage of the bill.
‘‘We have two bills with you. One is the special deposits to show the FDI bill and the other is the deposits protection bill. The FDI Bill is much more elaborate in terms of resolution; bank resolution or financial institution resolution. It states clearly how it will give all powers to the bank to be able to do it quickly. The protection bill will allow us to guarantee or cover or ensure the power of depositors.”
“So the initial thing we did, we came to around five thousand.We are pledged to review that because this figure was arrived at three to four years ago when we started the bill and the idea is that we can’t cover all the invoices…If you do the analysis, more than 90% of depositors would be covered”, the Governor stated.
These two bills are with you and we believe that you will look at them quickly. We are hoping that they be looked at before the end of March’’ Dr. Wampah added.
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By: Norvan Acquah-Hayford/citifmonline.com/Ghana
