henry a kofi wampah : making ghana ’ s financial system more efficient speech by mr henry a kofi wampah, governor of the bank of ghana, at the launch of the collateral registry ghana, accra, 8 may 2013. * * * honourable minister of finance and economic planning, your lordships ( justices of the superior courts ), your excellency, the swiss ambassador, officials of the international finance corporation ( ifc ), officials of the swiss state secretariat for economic affairs ( seco ), stakeholders of the banking and financial sector of the economy, executives of the ghana bar association, government officials, heads of department and staff of the bank of ghana invited guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning, it is my greatest pleasure to be here at this important occasion for the launch the collateral registry ghana. what we are witnessing today is historic because this registry is the first movable and immovable asset secured transactions registry in africa and has been established at an opportune time to address some fundamental challenges in our credit system and the economy as a whole. mr. chairman, the ghanaian financial sector has gone through almost two decades of restructuring and transformation. the bank of ghana, together with the appropriate government agencies, has worked on a number of reform programmes to improve the efficiency of the financial system. structural reforms have been undertaken in the capital market, money market, banking and non - bank financial institutions and the settlement and payment systems. as a result of these, we now have a robust and diversified financial system. there have also been extensive reviews of the regulatory frameworks underpinning the financial sector, alongside enactment of new laws to strengthen supervisory powers of financial sector regulators. mr. chairman, deepening financial intermediation is one of the critical objectives of the bank of ghana. indeed, complaints from both borrowers and lenders about the lack of transparency in credit access strengthened the resolve of the central bank to address the issue. on one hand, borrowers complained about high interest rates, hidden charges, nondisclosure of pertinent information and unfair denial of access to credit. lenders on the other hand, were worried about high default rates, difficulties of foreclosing on collateral through the courts and the misapplication of funds by borrowers. thus, the passage of the borrowers and lenders act, 2008 ( act773 ) paved the way to address some of these challenges. the act, among others, augments existing

these failures on your business. further, financial institutions will need to test fallback procedures or work - around processes that mitigate the effect of such failures on their ability to continue to conduct business. – 6 – if we accept the year 2000 problem as a worldwide problem, then we must focus our attentions broadly. whether the extent of your business resides only within one community or extends internationally, some portion of every firm ’ s year 2000 efforts must be coordinated and cooperative. this conference is an example of such coordination and cooperation. finally, we must continue to be a reliable source of accurate and sound information to maintain the public ’ s trust. i do not doubt that we can collectively rise to these challenges. * * *