The ARB Apex Bank has joined the Ghana-Sweden Chamber of Commerce (GSCC).
The Ghana-Sweden Chamber of Commerce president Pearl Delali Dorledzi on Thursday, March 18 led a delegation to present the certificate of membership at a ceremony in Accra.
Dorledzi revealed that the ARB Apex Bank had been admitted to the platinum membership, which confers the highest partnership privileges on the Bank and the Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) in Ghana.
ARB Apex Bank is a mini central bank for the Rural and Community Banks.
The bank was registered as a public limited liability company in January 2000 and received a banking license in June 2001.
It was admitted to the Bankers Clearing House in August 2001 as the 19th member and started its banking business on 2 July 2002.
According to Madam Dorledzi, the Chamber is excited to partner with ARB Apex Bank and RCBs in Ghana to bring the needed interventions in the rural areas.
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The Bank has 11 branch offices throughout the country, which are as follows: Accra, Cocoa House, Kumasi, Sunyani, Bolgatanga, Cape Coast, Takoradi, Koforidua, Hohoe, Tamale and Wa.
Key areas
She listed some of the key areas of the partnership interventions, which include women empowerment, capacity building and training.
She noted that the bank was happy to help bring the needed support especially because of the wide network of the bank’s branches.
GSCC
GSCC is a non-profit umbrella organisation that promotes bilateral relationships in Business, Trade, Technology and Innovation, Education, Sports, Culture, etc., between Ghanaian and Swedish businesses.
Businesses and individuals are required to be members of the organisation before such bilateral partnerships are promoted.
Benefits to banks
Kojo Mattah, the Managing Director of ARB Apex Bank who received the certificate on behalf of the bank noted that member banks were going to benefit from the partnership.
“We shall ensure membership of the Chamber benefits our member banks,” Mr Mattah said.
He indicated that through initial engagements which led to their admission to the Chamber, the bank has started reaping some benefits as a member of the Chamber.
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He further indicated that an Information Communications Technology Solutions firm has already offered to provide a Cybersecurity solution to the Bank at a highly subsidised cost.
This solution would support the Bank to ensure confidentiality and integrity of transactions performed on its electronic platforms as part of Bank of Ghana’s Cyber and Information Security Directive.
The COVR Security solution, which was originally priced at US$465,000 was discounted by the supplier, Floodgate Limited by 96 per cent as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility in recognition of the role ARB Apex Bank plays in serving the RCBs in driving the financial inclusion in the deprived areas of the country.
COVR Security is a Swedish Technology Company that provides mobile multi-customer authentication for Banks, Payment Network, and Credit Card Companies throughout the world.
They are hoping to use their partnership with ARB Apex Bank and the RCBs in Ghana as a springboard into other countries in the West African sub-Region.
Other partnerships
The ARB Apex Bank also partnered with Oikocredit in 2019 to enable it to lend to rural banks who play a vital economic role in rural communities by providing credit to smallholder farmers and small businesses, while also supporting rural development projects.
To provide reliable, scalable core banking capabilities for RCBs, ARB Apex is a long-term user of Temenos Inclusive Banking.
With just a single instance of the Temenos platform, ARB Apex supports 700 RCB branches and 7 million customer accounts, with high levels of automation helping to eliminate inefficient manual processes at each partner location.
The central bank also uses the rich integration functionality of the Temenos solution to develop innovative new products for RCBs, including the very first EMV debit card service in Ghana.
