Following the collapse of UT Bank and Capital Bank, the Bank of Ghana has indicated that the shareholders of Capital Bank will not be compensated.
The same may apply to UT Bank shareholders, though the central bank is considering compensating shareholders listed on the Stock Exchange.
Discussions with the Ghana Stock Exchange in the coming days will determine the way forward for persons or organisations who bought shares of UT Bank on the stocks, according to the Head of Banking Supervision of the Bank of Ghana, Raymond Amanfu.
With respect to Capital Bank, Mr. Amanfu explained that its shareholders should have been more vigilant given they bore the brunt of the risk.
“Now you must protect your interest as a shareholder. They appointed the board. The boards are accountable them so if the board is accountable to you and you are the shareholders, and quite a significant number who are shareholders are on the board, and you supervise the banks to get into this situation – you are the risk taker.”
In UT Bank’s case, it has institutional shareholders, some of which are on the Ghana Stock Exchange thus, further considerations will have to be made, Mr. Amanfu said.
“We think that there are issues of listed companies which are being discussed with the stock but the fact that we are listed does not mean that we should wait for you to prove how much of deposits money that is at stake compared to the huge deposits that have been taken.”
“…are we supposed to say that because you have listed, you allow the banks to run and but millions of deposited funds at risk? That is why were are saying we have to discuss this matter further with the stock exchange because, ultimately, the ordinary shareholder is the highest risk taker,” he added.
–citifmonlne