Chairman of Groupe Nduom, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom has asked the Bank of Ghana to cap the interest rates offered by banks and other financial institutions at 3 percent above the Treasury bill rate.
Currently the interest rate on the 91 day Treasury bill is at 13.3 % while the 182 day Treasury bill is at 13.9 %.
Dr. Nduom contends that such a move is prudent to help banks maintain a strong financial footing, as well as deal with issues such as non-performing loans.
Dr. Nduom also believes that the move will ease the challenges faced by the financial sector.
“We want long term sustainability, we don’t want people making promises that they cannot keep, and as a matter of fact many people have lost their life savings because they had fallen prey to all these institutions promising huge interest on your savings”, he said.
He explained that the central bank must put in measures that will prevent investors from losing their monies due to banks inabilities to sustain operations after promising high interest rates.
“We want that era to be behind us, that’s why we need decent but sustainable returns to be given to people and so my view is for interest rates to be capped at T plus 3, that’s three percent above Treasury bill rate that should be where we put the ceiling.”
He added that people looking for more interest should invest their monies in different sectors of the financial market.
“If anybody wants a higher return, let them go and invest their monies and let them buy some shares and simply find different and safe ways of investing their monies”.
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By: Anita Arthur/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana