Corporate Initiative Ghana (CIG), organisers of the annual Ghana Banking Awards, has commenced preparations towards the hosting of the 14th Ghana Banking Awards.
The awards will assess the performance of the 28 universal banks in the country, with both quantitative and qualitative set of data on the banks.
While the quantitative data is publicly available through the mandatory publication of banks’ financials in the press, the qualitative data is based on a survey conducted from the information provided by the banks themselves.
To ensure fairness and transparency of the approach and methodology used in the assessment, a Technical Committee is formed, which is populated by a maximum of two representatives of each of the 28 qualifying banks.
Subsequently, a meeting to start preparations towards the 14th Ghana Banking Awards has been held in Accra. It was attended by the CIG Working Group, the Technical Committee members from all the 28 universal banks as well as the main event statisticians, Ernst & Young.
According to the Chief Host and Chairman of the Awards Planning Board, Nana Otuo Acheampong, the meeting was to afford the participants the opportunity to discuss the approach and methodology document to be adopted for this year’s survey of bank customers and also determine other parameters to emphasise the transparency of the awards.
“We are noted for excellence and we will continue to do what is required of us to ensure that the superb brand name we have established for the banking industry is not compromised, hence the involvement of the Technical Committee members to discuss and agree on a common methodology to be used for the awards,” he said.
Nana Acheampong also urged the management of all the banks to ensure that they were represented at the Technical Committee level to afford them the opportunity to make inputs into the approach and methodology document.
“I wish to prevail on the banks to ensure that they send their representatives and also submit their data to enable CIG commission the customer survey of the banks,” he said.
He said the customers of the banks deserved to know how their banks were performing and “it also behoves the banks to accord their customers the opportunity to comment qualitatively on their operations in terms of certain categories such as customer service and other related banking services.”
Nana Acheampong added that in-as-much-as some banks might fail to submit their data for the qualitative analysis, they would be quantitatively assessed since published financial statements would be used.
Challenges
Meanwhile, at an earlier meeting to formally close the 13th Ghana Banking Awards of which Access Bank annexed the coveted prize of the ‘Bank of the Year’, the event statisticians identified some challenges to include insufficient time allocation for the customer survey; late submission of bank data by some banks; and management of participating banks not well informed by their Technical Committee representatives about developments at the various meetings.
With regard to the submission of data, for instance, the report noted, “Only one bank, Access Bank, submitted data for all the categories.”
Way forward
On the way forward, the report also recommended that the data collection should be timely, adding, “Gathering of data and surveys could be performed quarterly and responses averaged to provide a more representative view of customers across the year under review.”
“Management of participating banks should be more informed by their representative of the entire process in order to provide more quality information and data to enhance their performance,” it added.