GHANA – The Consolidated Bank Ghana, the country’s second largest commercial bank has celebrated its first anniversary in early September this year.

According to Mr Daniel Wilson Addo, the Managing Director of Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG), the Bank has been able to build a strong foundation for a future world class bank during the past one year that it had been in operation.

While speaking at the thanksgiving service held in the country’s capital, Accra, Mr. Addo said that the foundation had paved the way for the “erection of the superstructure, which will stand through the ages and be a monument for all time”.

The CBG was formed to take over the operations of five banks whose licences were withdrawn because of liquidity challenges.

The Banks were; Construction Bank, Beige Bank, Royal Bank, UniBank and Sovereign Bank.

The bank started operations during the second half of 2018 from a very difficult position complicated by a general loss of customer confidence in Ghana’s banking system.

According to Mr Addo, the challenges the bank faced and overcame in its first year of operation were enormous.

He however added that “suffice to say that at every stage we were motivated by the scale of the task ahead and a strong desire to justify the confidence placed in us”.

One of its challenges was the waning customer confidence in the bank that made a significant portion of the customers it inherited from the five banks seek to withdraw all their money.

This contributed to the bank recording a US$4.09 million (22.4 million cedes) loss in the last half of 2018.

CBG over time won the trust of many customers who kept their funds at the financial institution and in the six months into 2019, the bank has succeeded in turning around its fortunes and moved into profitability.

Its 2019 second quarter results show a profit after tax of US$ 8.05 million (41.1 million Ghana cedis), representing about 280 per cent improvement on performance over the 2018 financial results.

The celebration was therefore held to show appreciation to God for the remarkable achievement and to also rally the board, management and staff for greater success.

The event was also used to honour over 20 staff of the bank with plaques, cash and souvenirs.

Consolidated Bank Ghana is currently the second largest Bank in Ghana with a total asset base of US$1.55 billion (8.5 billion Ghana Cedes) .

The Bank also operates 148 branches spread across the country’s 10 regions.