uniBank (Ghana) Limited, commonly known as uniBank, was an indigenous private bank in Ghana, West Africa. The bank was placed in administration in March 2018 and subsequently consolidated as part of the Ghana Government's handling of its banking crisis. The collapse was controversial as it involved allegations of trading insolvently, and 5 billion cedis in illegal and related party transactions, unlawful loans and illegal acquisition of bank assets by Directors and shareholders.[1] Founded by a former governor of the Bank of Ghana, uniBank was one of the thirty-five commercial banks licensed to operate in Ghana.[2]
uniBank was a tier one financial services provider, in 2013 the bank's total assets were valued at approximately US$433 million (GHS:1.3 billion), with shareholders' equity of approximately US$50 million (GHS:151 million).[3]
At the time of its demise it was reported it had received some 2.2bn cedis since 2016 in liquidity support to enable it to operate.[5] A subsequent report by the receivers reported that the bank was insolvent at the time of the administration and that Directors and shareholders of the bank engaged in illegal transactions by giving out unlawful loans and advances as well as illegal acquisition of assets in the name of related interests. The receiver subsequently sued the founder and various related parties for the return of more than 5 billion cedis.[6]
The bank was founded by Dr Kwabena Duffuor, a former Governor of the Bank of Ghana under the Jerry Rawlings' NDC Government and former Finance Minister under the Atta Mills' NDC Government. At the time of the bank's demise it was led by his son Dr Kwabena Duffuor II (sometimes referred to as Dr Kwabena Duffuor jr).[7]
History
uniBank was incorporated in 1997 as a financial services provider. Following the issuance of a banking license, uniBank began providing banking services in January 2001, focusing on meeting the banking needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and those of individual customers.[8][9] In 2009, the bank began offering Internet banking and mobile banking.[10]
Ownership
The stock of uniBank is privately held. The detailed shareholding in the company stock is not publicly available at the moment.
Leadership
At the time of the bank's demise, Dr Kwabena Duffuor II had been its chief executive officer since replacing Felix Nyarko-Pong on June 1, 2017. Prior to this, he had served as the chief operating officer from June 2013.[11]
Other management included Ekow Nyarko Dadzie-Dennis (chief operating officer), Owusu-Ansah Awere (executive director), Clifford Duke Mettle (executive director), Sylvia Assimeng-Archer (executive secretary), John Collins Arthur (executive head of treasury and global trade), Kwesi Nkrumah Pimpah (director of risk management), Elsie Dansoa Kyereh (executive head of corporate banking) and Florence Ohene (executive head of innovations and business execution).
uniBank signs sponsorship deal with Ghana Black Stars
On 7 November 2013, uniBank became the first indigenous bank to sponsor the Ghana national football team – The Black Stars. This sponsorship agreement between the bank and the Ghana Football Association was a three-year deal worth 1.2 million dollars. The deal was hailed by Kwesi Nyantakyi, President of the GFA and was considered timely as the team was preparing for their final phase of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. The bank per the agreement was to pay the Ghana Football Association 400,000 dollars per year until 2015.
uniBank Brand Icon-Asamoah Gyan with Owusu-Ansah Awere, Executive Director, uniBank.
Brand Ambassador - uniBank the official bank of the Black Stars, on January 22, 2014 struck a two-year deal with Black Stars’ captain, Asamoah Gyan, as its brand icon. Gyan, who led the Black Stars to their third successive World Cup qualification, will for two years, promote the products and services of the bank. Gyan, as per the terms of the deal, would appear on print and electronic advertising media of the bank, as well as endorse the brand in and outside the country, while the bank will make annual financial commitments to the player.[13][14]
Emmanuel Akrong, who is the author of Asset Quality Performance of Banks in Ghana, the book that predicted the collapse of at least eight banks, has claimed "Unibank was borrowing to finance its loans" before its takeover by Bank of Ghana.
UniBank was one of nine banks identified after the asset quality review exercise undertaken in 2016, to be significantly undercapitalised with a CAR of 4.75%.[18]
The bank, in a statement released by the governor of BoG, persistently suffered liquidity shortfalls and consistently breached its cash reserve requirement.[19]
KPMG were announced as administrators of the bank and were given six months to manage the bank after which it was to revert to an unnamed private organization.[20] It was reported at the time that the bank had a negative capital adequacy of -24% at December 2017[21] and had been reliant on more than 2.2 billion cedis (US$498m at the time) of liquidity support from the BoG.[22]
Following a confidential report by KPMG, the bank was placed in receivership under KPMG. On 1 August 2018, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) announced that it was creating the Consolidated Bank Gh. Ltd to take over the bank with four other struggling banks.[23]
The receiver subsequently sued the founder and various related parties for the return of more than 5 billion cedis alleging the bank was insolvent at the time of the administration and that directors and shareholders of the bank engaged in illegal transactions by giving out unlawful loans and advances as well as illegal acquisition of assets in the name of related interests and illegal related party transactions. The defendants include the founder Dr Duffuor and Hoda Holdings Ltd, Hoda Properties, Alban Logistics, Starlife Assurance, Dr Kwabena Duffuor II, Boatemaa Kakra Duffuor-Nyarko and Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjaye.
On 20 May 2018, it was reported that nearly 500 uniBank employees had been served with dismissal letters. Those affected included security personnel and tellers who were outsourced from a company allegedly owned by Dr Kwabena Duffuor, founder of the bank.[24]
On 21 August 2018, it was reported that the founder of the bank, Dr Duffuor, was suing the Ghana Government in an attempt to regain control of the bank. Among other issues he claimed that the revocation of uniBank's banking licence constituted an unlawful expropriation of the bank's property and he challenged the legality of issuing a banking licence to the new consolidating entity Consolidated Bank Ghana. The lawsuit also disclosed that almost all the bank's loan book had been classed as impaired by the Government appointed Receiver.[25]
On 16 October 2018, it was further reported that the son of the founder and former CEO of the bank, Dr Kwabena Duffuor II was suing KPMG and some of its staff accusing them of deceit and deliberately misleading the Bank of Ghana and government into collapsing the bank. Dr Kwabena Duffuor II alleges that KPMG's commercial interest in further work influenced its report to the government.[26]
Prempeh College is a public secondary boarding school for boys located in Kumasi, the capital city of the Ashanti Region, Ghana. The school was founded in 1949 by the Asanteman traditional authority, the British Colonial Government, the Methodist Church Ghana and the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. The school is named after the King of Ashanti (Asantehene), Sir Osei Tutu Agyeman Prempeh II, who donated the land on which the school was built, and was modeled on Eton College in England.
The Bank of Ghana is the Central Bank of Ghana. It is located in Accra and was formed in 1957. The Bank of Ghana has Seven Regional Offices in addition to its head office in Accra. The regional offices are located in the following cities, Hohoe, Kumasi, Suyani, Tamale, Takoradi, Bolgatanga, Wa. The regional offices are responsible for implementing the policies and directives of the Bank of Ghana in their respective regions. They also provide banking services to the government, financial institutions, and the public.
GCB Bank Limited formally known as Ghana Commercial Bank is the largest bank in Ghana in terms of total operating assets and share of industry deposits, with 14.2% of total industry deposits. In August 2017, the Bank of Ghana, the nation's central bank, announced that it had approved a Purchase and Assumption transaction with GCB Bank Limited for the transfer of all deposits and selected assets of UT Bank and Capital Bank (Ghana) to GCB Bank Ltd.
Ecobank Ghana PLC is a commercial bank in Ghana. It is one of the commercial banks licensed by the Bank of Ghana, the national banking regulator. In 2022, the bank retained its position as the largest bank in Ghana in the 2023 Ghana Banking Survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). LIMA Partners also named the bank as the biggest bank by total assets in the Ghana Banking Industry Report.
CalBank is a commercial bank in Ghana, that is licensed by the Bank of Ghana, the central bank and national banking regulator.
Kwabena Duffuor was the Finance Minister of Ghana. He has also served as the governor of the Bank of Ghana. He was named as one of the four best Central Bank Governors in the World at an IMF/World Bank meeting in 1999.
National Investment Bank, normally abbreviated to NIB, is a state owned commercial bank in Ghana. It is one of the commercial banks licensed by the Bank of Ghana, the national banking regulator. NIB was form to promote industrialization of all sectors in the country. It has undergone management and financial restructure to help it attain higher financial levels across the world.
Paul Amoako Acquah is a Ghanaian economist and a former Deputy Director for the Africa Department of the International Monetary Fund from 1998 to 2001. He is also a former Governor of the Bank of Ghana (2001-2009). During his tenure as Governor of the Bank of Ghana he implemented the re-denomination of the Ghanaian cedi.
Capital Bank was an indigenous private national development and commercial Ghanaian bank. It was one of the private national development and commercial banks licensed by Bank of Ghana, the national banking regulator. On August 14, 2017, the Bank of Ghana announced it had revoked its license due to insolvency during Ghana's banking crisis. The bank was then taken over by GCB Bank. The founder of the bank, William Ato Essien and three others were subsequently charged with misappropriating 100 million Ghana Cedis of the Bank's assets.
Felix Nyarko-Pong is a Ghanaian banker who was CEO of uniBank from June 2011 to May 2017.
GN Bank is an indigenous private Ghanaian owned commercial bank in Ghana. GN Bank is one of the private commercial banks licensed to operate in Ghana. GN Bank has over 260 locations across the 10 regions of Ghana.
Charles Kofi Adu Boahen is a Ghanaian politician and a public servant. He is a member of the New Patriotic Party and was the deputy minister for Finance in Ghana until November 2022. He is the son of Mrs Mary Adu Boahen and Prof. Albert Adu Boahen, a global academician, historian and politician who became the New Patriotic Party's flagbearer in the 1992 Ghanaian general elections. He was the Minister of State at the Finance Ministry but was dismissed after allegations of corruption.
The Royal Bank is a former banking and financial institution headquartered at Legon, Ghana.
Stephen Kwabena Opuni is a Ghanaian health practitioner and a former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board.
Consolidated Bank Ghana(CBG) is a commercial bank in Ghana. It is licensed by the Bank of Ghana, the central bank and national banking regulator.
The Ghana banking crisis was a severe banking crisis that affected Ghana between August 2017 and January 2020. The Bank of Ghana (BoG) allowed several indigenous banks to be taken over by private companies between August 2017 and January 2019 after Nana Akufo-Addo was elected president in December 2016. Most of the indigenous banks had been at the risk of defaulting on their loans, as they had been affected by the economic fallout of the Great Recession, which caused the events leading up to the Arab Spring that occurred in North Africa beginning in 2010. The crisis is the most severe economic crisis to affect Ghana since it became an independent country in 1960. The COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Ghana towards the end of the banking crisis in 2020, dealing further damage to the country's economy.
OmniBSIC Bank Ghana Limited is a commercial bank in Ghana that is licensed by the Bank of Ghana, the central bank and national banking regulator.
The E-Cedi is a proposed central bank digital currency (CBDC) for Ghana. Dr. Ernest Addison is the Governor of the Bank of Ghana. In June 2021, he announced the development of the E-Cedi.
Daniel Wilson Kodwo Addo is a Ghanaian banker who is managing director of CBG. He was appointed to this position in August 2018 after formation of the bank in a merger of five distressed banks in Ghana by the Bank of Ghana in the 2018 Ghana banking sector clean-up. He was formerly an Executive Director of First Atlantic Bank.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
:Aftertax: US$8.7 million (2013) (GHS:26,016,118)
