GCB draws 3-year corporate plan - To consolidate and expand its operations

Story: Boahene Asamoah

THE Ghana Commercial Bank, the country’s biggest bank in terms of branch network has drawn up a new three-year corporate plan to consolidate as well as expand its operations in the financial services sector of the country.
The new corporate plan has two main objectives; to deliver quality service and to create value for shareholders.
Announcing the new direction of the bank at the annual general meeting (AGM) of the bank in Accra at the weekend, the board chairman of the bank, Mr K. G. Osei-Bonsu, said “the bank will strengthen its capacity to lead in the financing of major and financially rewarding businesses in key sectors of the economy such as cocoa, petroleum and natural gas”.
Again, he said the new direction would also focus on increasing business generation, through aggressive but cost effective advances, money transfer and financing of imports and export trade activities.
Giving the financial performance of the bank for the 2007 financial year, Mr Osei-Bonsu said the company saw improvements in its financials for the year due to the pragmatic strategies adopted by the management.
He said profit after tax dipped slightly from GH¢26.02 million in 2006 as against GH¢25.46 recorded last year.
He said gross loans and advances went up significantly during the period rising from GH¢376.2 million in 2006 to GH¢760.06 million in 2007 representing an increase of 102.2 per cent.
Interest income also went up by 9.5 per cent from GH¢102.4 million in 2006 to GH¢112.2 million last year.
The chairman said the board declared a dividend of GH¢0.055 per share amounting to GH¢14.575 million compared to the previous year’s figure of GH¢9.075 million representing a 57.24 per cent of profit after tax.
He said the bank will pursue broad objectives to ensure the delivery of quality service and the creation of value for shareholders.
“In this direction, the bank will deepen its wide area network base, deploy modern systems and technology to provide integrated back and front office operations that will enhance quality service delivery”, Mr Osei-Bonsu stated.
He mentioned the rights issues the bank undertook which were oversubscribed by 71.6 per cent and attributed that to the marked increase in capital gain of the bank’s shares on the stock exchange.
The Managing Director of the Bank, Mr Lawrence Adu-Mante, in his statement said “we are relentless in our efforts to develop products to meet the needs of the customer in line with the Bank’s focus of service delivery for customer satisfaction”.
He said the bank had also signed an agreement with MasterCard International and acquired a principal status certification in order to roll out MasterCard branded products throughout the country.
Mr Adu-Mante said the bank has been able to hook up all its 136 branches on a wide-area network and would continue to use information technology to leverage its products and services to deliver quality services to its customers.