also see technology exhibition areas set up for leading currency industry suppliers to demonstrate their products and innovations in currency production, counting, sorting, authentication, recycling, branch automation, tracking & tracing, packaging, etc. the programme is expected to end with a page | 6 tour of the bank of ghana's new cash centre, which was commissioned in 2015. 14. to conclude, let me once again express my immense gratitude to the organizers and the secretariat for the hard work and diligence in putting this seminar together, not forgetting the various sponsors for their kind generosity. i hope that the outcome of the seminar series will provide cutting - edge policy strategies to strengthen currency management across the region. enjoy your stay in accra and please indulge in some shopping – most of our shops accept cash payments! 15. on this note, i declare the 2019 iccos currency conference dully opened. thank you. page | 7

dynamic and iterative process, not a one - off exercise. it is a continuous cycle ; hence there should be genuine awareness, ownership and accountability for risks throughout the organization. lessons for banks from experiences elsewhere there is no doubt that ghanaian banks have many lessons to learn from developments in nigeria and in the west. the first lesson is that poor risk analysis can have a debilitating effect on banking operations. ignoring the dangers of credit, market, operational risks, even in a situation of high capital, can be problematic. banking is not simply deposit mobilization and lending. banking is about risk analysis and strategic deployment of funds to earn commensurate returns at minimal risk. it is not about bigger balance sheets or the fastest growing banks, although size and growth rate are important dynamics in banking. an area ghanaian banks will have to focus their attention is the need to increase their inhouse capacity for risk analysis in the emerging oil and gas sectors. this is because the two sub - sectors that created problems for the five banks taken over by the central bank of nigeria were in the oil and gas sector and the capital market ( specifically margin loans ). incidentally the affected banks were opening their books to these sectors for the first time. obviously, from the benefit of hindsight it is obvious that there was poor risk analysis of exposures to these sectors. i have heard the suggestion that the banks lacked expertise in these areas. my response is that it is not enough to place the blame on the lack of expertise. banks must invest in capacity building in risk management especially for emerging sectors of the ghanaian economy. as i suggested earlier, the culture of risk management is not well rooted in our banking system. boards of banks need to establish risk management functions at senior levels with direct reporting to a committee of the board to ensure that all risk aspects in the operations of banks are monitored and controlled. as banks in ghana grow bigger and go international because of the capital injection, they are likely to take on several risks that they have previously been unfamiliar with. banks ’ ability to manage cross border regulatory risks, currency risks, and other market risks will become critical going forward. for banks to be effective in the new environment, they have to restructure their targets to reduce unnecessary risk taking, and reduce the motivation for fraud. banks need to realize that high targets lead to higher risk taking which can result in higher profits but this may not necessarily result in better performance. undue risk taking, buoyed by unrealistic