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Bloomberg
Ghana’s central bank approved a deal that will see Ghana Commercial Bank Ltd. take over the deposits and selected assets of UT Bank Ltd. and Capital Bank Ltd. after the two lenders failed to meet capital requirements.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP will sell the rest of the assets to settle liabilities, Raymond Amanfu, head of banking supervision at Bank of Ghana, said by phone on Monday. UT Bank and Capital Bank’s licenses were revoked “due to severe impairment of their capital,†the central bank said.
Ghana’s central bank, which wants to increase the minimum capital requirement for lenders, delayed the move to allow banks enough time to increase their capital adequacy ratios to 10 percent. The central bank in March gave nine lenders, including UT Bank and Capital Bank, an ultimatum that they either had to meet the minimum requirements, or show how they would get there, by September.
Some of GCB’s staff are currently at the branches of the two failed banks to take stock of transactions and balances, Amanfu said. GCB will open the branches to customers later on Monday, he said. Customer deposits are safe, according to the central bank. The Ghana Stock Exchange suspended UT Bank’s shares indefinitely, the Accra-based bourse said.
GCB, which is one of the two biggest lenders in Ghana, was selected among three other contenders on the basis of purchase price, cost of funding, branches to be retained, staff to be employed and the impact on the acquiring bank’s capital adequacy ratio, according to the central bank’s statement.
Bank of Ghana is reviewing the capital requirements of the country’s bank and is expected to revise it upwards from the current 120 million cedis ($27 million).