Ghana's Biggest Lender Plans to Start an Investment-Bank Unit

(Bloomberg) -- GCB Bank Ltd., Ghana’s biggest lender, plans to transform its development-finance unit into an investment bank known as GCB Securities.

Staff for the unit have already been recruited, Managing Director Anselm Sowah told reporters in Accra. GCB also plans to start a bancassurance business in partnership with a foreign-based insurer, he said, adding that the lender also wants to start work this year on opening new subsidiaries in English-speaking West African countries.

GCB has cut 300 of the 850 staff it took over in August 2017 from now-defunct UT Bank Ltd. and Capital Bank Ltd. and another 120 will leave this year, the MD said. The lender has 2,300 staff and 180 branches.

To contact the reporter on this story: Moses Mozart Dzawu in Accra at mdzawu@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stefania Bianchi at sbianchi10@bloomberg.net, Vernon Wessels

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.