The African Development Bank (ADB), is to commit five million US Dollars under the Rural Financial Project (RFSP) to rural banks for capacity building.
Mr. Emmanuel K. Kwapong, Managing Director of the APEX Bank, said under the programme investment in communication and technology needs of rural banks would be catered.
A human resource development scheme for staff and a programme for the improvement of internal control systems would be catered for.
Mr. Kwapong announced this when he spoke on the topic “Update on the APEX Bank limited-problems and the way forward” at the 12th Biennial Meeting of the Association of Rural Banks (ARB) in Kumasi, on Saturday.
The meeting was under the theme “Positive change towards accelerated and sustainable rural development – the role of rural and community banks”.
Mr. Kwapong said Messrs Investek Consultancy Services had been contracted to conduct an in-depth assessment for the capacity building programme.
He said the APEX Bank was collaborating with the Metropolitan and Allied Banks to channel the cedi equivalent of foreign transfers to beneficiaries through more rural banks.
Currently only the Atwima, Kwanwoma, Nsoatreman and Nwabiagya rural banks were in the transfer business on pilot basis. He said that the computerisation of rural banks would begin next year.
The project would take three years to complete with a “Wide Area network installed to network the computerized system,” he said.
