bank of ghana is confident that the actions taken in terms of recapitalisation, closure of insolvent banks and widespread regulatory reforms will gradually bringing back trust and confidence in the ghanaian banking sector. restoring the health of the banking sector 8. ladies and gentlemen, i have every reason to feel confident about gains and achievements made so far in the financial sector. the financial sector is currently healthier and better able to withstand external shocks compared to the financial sector at the beginning of 2017. it is better capitalized, liquid, profitable, and more efficient and has adequate capital buffers to enable it manage any adverse external developments. such an optimistic outlook seemed nearly impossible in 2017 when we started these reforms. 9. mr. chairman, a dynamic growth - oriented financial system must be strong, well capitalised, and effectively supervised within a fair regulatory environment in accordance with international best practices and standards. there is therefore, a huge regulatory burden on us to remain vigilant towards all forms of risks in the banking sector and to tighten our regulatory and supervisory responsibilities to continue with efforts at strengthening and stabilizing the banking industry. these reforms will ensure the safety and soundness of banks, aligning macro and micro - prudential risks to bank capital and addressing crosssectoral and cross - border risks to the industry. in other to address potential risks and to properly risk profile individual banks, we are taking steps to revise the current risk - based supervision framework in line with current developments in the global banking environment. 10. to further boost depositors ’ confidence and lock - in the reform process, the deposit insurance protection corporation ( dipc ) would become fully operational effective october 1, 2019. the deposit insurance is one of the key pillars in securing financial sector stability. as amended, the ghana deposit protection act 2016 ( act 931 ) was enacted to protect small savings from losses incurred as a result of the occurrences of an insured event such as the revocation of a deposit taking institution ’ s license. among others, the act also supports the development of a safe, sound, stable and efficient market - based financial system. in the process of operationalising the dipc, the bank has already sent letters to banks to begin a process of onboarding after agreeing on an annual premium of 0. 3 to 1. 5 percent of insurable deposits with participating institutions. the bank of ghana, which is the project implementation authority, will support the dipc for 3 years to ensure sustainability. the agreed

in particular, i would like to take this opportunity to clarify the misinformation about the circumstances surrounding the license revocation of the heritage bank. we were quite measured not to engage with the directors of the bank at the time, but sometimesit pays to clarify such actions to avoid misperceptions. during our assessments of this bank, we were able to unravel the financial engineering that went into the creation of false capital upon which the then heritage bank obtained its license. the heritage bank did not have the initial gh¢120 million capital required to obtain the universal banking license that was granted in 2016. in fact, the shareholders and directors of the heritage bank had roundtripped on a gh¢30 million payment made by cocobod to alive industries, a related company belonging to the principal shareholder — bank statements and the transaction documents are available for those who are interested to review. discriminatory reforms 6. there has also been some assertions that the bank of ghana has allowed banks that were not able to raise the minimum capital by the deadline to continue even after the deadline. i am sure you all followed the debate on the need to support indigenous banks which received a favourable response from the government through the creation of the ghana amalgamated trust. the banks that received support from gat met the qualifying criteria of being better governed and well managed. what is being perceived as discriminatory should rather be seen as the reward for better corporate governance and good management. that was the qualifying criteria. with the exception of the two state - owned banks ( adb and nib ), the private banks that received assistance were assessed and considered better managed than those that had their licenses revoked. section on bailout or resolution 7. now, the question on people ’ s minds is whether bank of ghana could have used the bail - out money to keep the banks in operation. ladies and gentlemen, such reasoning suggests a lack of understanding of the fundamental issues at play. let me say that the underlying factors that accounted for the resolution of the banks were deeper than liquidity issues. here, one can mention very serious infractions, weak governance structures and related - party transactions which rendered those defunct banks insolvent. i will not rehash these issues but rather look forward to the emergence of a stronger and well - capitalised banking sector, and as major stakeholders of the financial sector, we should all commit ourselves to never roll back the gains we have achieved in the industry. the