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S. African bank to enter Ghana's financial market

Xinhua, January 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

South Africa's Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) is set to become the 28th universal banking institution in Ghana's growing financial market by June this year, an official of the bank said Thursday.

Michael Larbie, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Regional Head for RMB West Africa, said the bank had in principle been licensed to start universal banking in Ghana.

Larbie, who spoke to Xinhua on the sides of the start of construction work on Ghana's 350 Mega Watts (MW) thermal plant, said RMB had played a leading role in securing financing for the Ghanaian power project.

Larbie also said RMB had been investing heavily in real estates and other state projects in Ghana. "We have a very big business in real estates here, and we've got a lot of real estate projects," he said, naming some of them as the headquarters of Stanbic Bank, Agricultural Development Bank, as well as shopping malls in Accra and Kumasi.

Beside private sector investments, RMB also funds projects of two state institutions, Ghana Grid Company and the Ghana Ports and Harbors Authority.

With the bank's universal banking operations to start in Ghana, the CEO said their project financing in the country would not diminish.

"We are currently heavily invested in Ghana with a range of 750 million U.S. dollars to about 950 million U.S. dollars, both debt and equity," he said.

There are currently 27 universal banks operating in the West African country whose foreign exchange mainly depends on gold, cocoa and petroleum exports. Endi