By: Fred Yaw SARPONG
fsarpong@theeventpr.com
Bank of Ghana (BoG), the regulator of the banking sector says it has put up a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with other public regulatory agencies to have a common way of producing financial data.
The targeted regulatory authorities are Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), National Insurance Commission (NIC) and National Pension Regulatory Authority (NPRA).
Even though there is no law that state that these public regulatory authorities are under the Bank of Ghana and for that matter they can be compel to act, however Dr. Osei Yeboah, Head of Micro Prudential Office at Bank of Ghana explained that these authorities are operating in the same space as the Bank of Ghana.
He mentioned that, at regulators forum they address issues of much concern to the industry players and one of such issues is data collection. “If the financial system is working well it be of benefit to all the regulators,” he disclosed to the Daily Express in an interview at a two-day Advance Training Workshop held in Accra. The training was organized by the Journalists for Business Advocacy (JBA) and it was sponsored by the Bank of Ghana and Ecobank Ghana.
In order to see that things work effectively, Dr. Yeboah told the Daily Express that the regulators are moving to the technical level of their members where issue of data collection will be addressed.
He noted that the institutions are working to build on their data but sometimes the way Bank of Ghana want the information is not the way these regulators use the information for, so they don’t collect the information that way.
“But if we can all have a common understanding that, this information could be use by the BoG so let’s collect it at this particular way to suit their purpose. Then it will help them also to design templates for the various institutions under them to provide the information in that way,” he stated.
“What the central bank wants is that these regulators will provide the information to suit their own purposes and also the purpose of the BoG and other regulatory authorities,” he mentioned.
Recently, Mrs. Grace Akrofi, a Research Advisor to the Governor of the Bank of Ghana told the Daily Express that there is no much difficulty in collecting data from the universal banks.
“When it comes to the universal banks data collection is very easy because we already have means of reporting financial statement and data to the central banks,” she added.
She mentioned that where they usually have difficulty is when the central bank try collecting data from other financial institutions like the insurance companies and others. “Even some of the insurance companies have difficulty in providing accurate data,” she added.
Mrs. Akrofi told the Daily Express that they sometimes relied on the regulating bodies to collect data. “We realized that some of them failed to provide the data so we decided to depend of their regulatory agencies for feedback,” adding that Apex Bank that regulates Rural Banks is one of such bodies they depend on.
She pointed out that what the Bank of Ghana is trying to do is to also look at the Credit Unions. “We are looking at their regulatory and supervisory bodies. So we want to rely on these bodies to give us information.”
She further explained that there is delay in getting data because some of the institutions do not have requisite staff especially at the institutions they are trying to cover.
For instance, she mentioned credit unions as one of the bodies whose staff are not when it comes to data collection. “How reliable are the staffs of the Credit Unions who compile data,” she asked.
“Some of them even do not have computers to be able to get the data and transmit it. For the big banks we don’t have problem but for the other smaller institutions there are few challenges.”
She told the Daily Express that the central bank is trying to help all these institutions to also come on board so that “we can get a view of what’s happening in the whole financial sector of the country.”
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