Sinapi Aba Trust opens bank in Kumasi

Otumfuo Osei Tutu 11, Asantehene, has called on banks in the country to adopt more pragmatic approaches to convince more people to save with them.

He urged the banks to come up with attractive measures that could convince more people to save with them.

The Asantehene gave the advice when the board and management members of the Sinapi Aba Trust, a micro-finance organisation, paid a courtesy call on him at the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi.

The visit was to officially inform him and seek his blessings for the company’s newly established Sinapi Aba Savings and Loans bank in Kumasi.

The Board Chairman, Mr Ebo Hewton, introduced the members of the board and the management to Otumfuo and also  officially invited him to grace the official launch today.

Sinapi Aba Trust (SAT), a Christian non—governmental micro-finance organisation, started in May, 1994 in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, has extended credit, capacity building programmes and transformational services to low income individuals and entrepreneurs, majority of them being women.

Otumfuo expressed his happiness for the company’s efforts to open its own bank after successful operations and was optimistic that they could sustain that effort.

He, however, urged the company to encourage individuals such as market women, other traders and artisans, who made a lot of daily sales, to send their money to their bank rather than to keep it in their homes and workplaces.

Otumfuo also urged the bank to be customer-friendly so that they could win the confidence of their customers.

Mr Hewton said the company had worked significantly for the past 19 years and had improved astronomically and that had convinced the Bank of Ghana (BOG) to grant them the requisite licence to operate as a bank.

The board chairman on behalf of the board and the management, presented GH¢10, 000 as the company’s contribution to support the Otumfuo Education Fund.

By Nana Yaw Barimah/Daily Graphic/Ghana