Former Banker narrates how her life came to a standstill after BoG’s revocation of S&L licences

‘The feeling of waking up to a job in one breath and coming back home as unemployed is an experience no one should ever wish on their worst enemy, especially, in this time of global job insecurity,’ Yvonne (as we choose to call her for the purpose of this story) says to The Ghana Report as she recounts how the banking reforms have affected her life.

The 30-year-old narrates to The Ghana Report how her entire life, including her scheduled wedding, came to a standstill when the Bank of Ghana shut down operations of her company, First Trust Savings & Loans, one of twenty three(23) financial institutions closed down some weeks ago.

Yvonne is one of the over 5,000 workers who will most likely be jobless after the banking sector clean-up by the central bank is over.

The agonizing words of the former banker reverberates even as she tells her story.

Yvonne was a senior staff at the Lapaz branch of the First Trust Savings and Loans company. All seemed well enough as the bread winner of three and soon-to-be wife continued with her usual daily routine until news of her company’s shut down was aired.

“It was devastating,” she told The Ghana Report’s Aba Asamoah.

She’s at a loss as to what the future holds even as she suspends her wedding arrangements in the wake of her “joblessness”.

“We actually do not know our fate, we don’t know whether we are going to go home or we are going to be consolidated, I don’t know… we actually do not know what is going to happen to us,” the rather worried-looking Yvonne said.

Explaining her apprehension, Yvonne narrated how she has worked with the Savings and Loans Company for close to five years with hopes and aspirations of rising through the ranks and possibly becoming the Managing Director, a dream cut short, for now at least.

“We don’t know whether we are unemployed or they are going to consume us, we just don’t know,” she said.

The 30-year-old banker said, the most difficult part of the experience of losing her job was how to break the news to her aged parents whom she has been supporting financially for the past several years now.

“It has been difficult but I managed to tell them but the thing is we are now under the receiver and nobody is telling us anything, it is just rumors flying around,” she said.

BACKGROUND

Ghana’s Central Bank on Friday, August 16, 2019 revoked the licenses of 23 Savings and Loans companies for being insolvent.

They are Midland, Ideal, uniCredit, Global Access, Accent, Adom, Alpha, All Time, ASN, CDH, Commerz, Crest, Dream Finance, Express Savings and Loans, First African Savings, First Allied, First Ghana, First Trust Savings and Loans.

The rest are: GN Savings and Loans, Legacy, IFS, Sterling and Women’s World Bank.

According to the BoG, “The revocation of the licenses of these institutions has become necessary because they are insolvent even after a reasonable period within which the Bank of Ghana has engaged with them in the hope that they would be recapitalized by their shareholders to return them to solvency.

It is the Bank of Ghana’s assessment that these institutions have no reasonable prospects of recovery, and that their continued existence poses severe risks to the stability of the financial system and to the interests of their depositors.”

The Central Bank in a statement issued announcing the revocation appointed Mr. Eric Nipah as a Receiver for the specified institutions.