Banking awards to be reviewed annually

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

Corporate Initiative Ghana (CIG), organisers of the Ghana Banking Awards, has assured the banks and the public of its resolve to improve the methodology used in assessing the players in the industry.
It said the move was to ensure that concerns raised and recommendations made were factored into the new methodology for the next awards to continuously ensure fairness and transparency.
The Executive Secretary of CIG, Mr Afotey Odarteifio, gave the assurance when he led a delegation to pay a courtesy call on the acting Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Henry Kofi Wampa. The delegation also used the opportunity to  present copies of the 2011 Banking Awards Survey Report to Mr Wampa.
Mr Odarteifio said CIG was committed to ensuring a level playing field for participating banks “because we recognise the level of competition within the sector and we will do our utmost to ensure a fair assessment of customers’ experiences of banking services to promote the credibility of the awards further.”
Mr Odarteifio said holding the awards for 11 consecutive years without a break was a testimony of CIG’s resolve to meet one of its core objectives of ensuring a competitive and vibrant banking sector in the country.
He mentioned that the Technical Committee (which comprises representatives of all the participating banks, the event statisticians and the executives of CIG) held at least three meetings to make inputs into the methodology before the questionnaire were administered on the field.
“At the technical committee meetings, the representatives of the banks are allowed to brainstorm with the events statisticians on how each award category should be structured and that, to us, is not only crucial but important,” Mr Odartefio said.
He pointed out that what the customers said about the banks was used to determine the results and, therefore, urged the banks to take the comments of their customers seriously to enable them to serve them better.
Mr Odarteifio said CIG was also working frantically behind the scenes to organise the Ghana Rural and Community Banking Awards as well as the Ghana Insurance Awards in an effort to bring similar competition into their operations.
He said CIG would welcome any support from the central bank to sustain the awards which had become one of the biggest corporate events on the country’s calendar.
Mr Odarteifio also urged other corporate bodies to support the awards as they also stood to gain from a highly competitive banking sector in the country.
The Chief Host of the Rural and Community banking Awards, Mr Dela Serlomey, who was part of the delegation, said the processes had been set in motion to make the rural and community banking awards a reality.
Mr Serlomey intimated that the Ghana Rural and Community Banks Awards would be held next year, in collaboration with the Association of Rural Banks and support of the ARB Apex Bank, and would see a higher level of competition in the rural and community bank space that would generate better services for customers in that market segment.
He expressed confidence that through the Rural and Community Banks Awards, the service quality deficit between the rural banks and the universal banks could be bridged, therefore democratising banking in the Ghanaian economy.
Dr Wampa expressed gratitude to CIG for making the report available to the bank for its perusal.
He also commended the banking awards organisers for initiating an event which was also complementing the bank’s effort to ensure that the commercial banks remained competitive to serve their customers better.
The 2011 awards saw UT Bank lifting the coveted award as the Bank of the Year for the first time since it became eligible to compete for it.