Three new commercial banks could start operations in the country in the next few months –that is if the Bank of Ghana finally approves their applications. These are essentially three Ghanaian firms planning to operate as commercial banks. Two of the applications, JOY-BUSINESS has learnt are coming from existing Non-Bank Financial Institutions and the other, a completely new institution yet to start operations. One of the firms is close to securing its provisional license to soon start operations. Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Kwesi Amissah-Arthur disclosed this yesterday in response to a question by JOYBUSINESS as to whether the country should expect more banks. This was at the Press-briefing session after the MPC meeting where he also outlined what they would be looking out for before issuing the lincences. “The same criteria of spread in ownership apply because we don’t want somebody who says that I have 100 million cedis so I qualify to set up a bank. The bank of Ghana will say no. We want to see a situation where ownership is not concentrated in one company or individual but see that various people are participating in it. We are going to see a situation where any bank that comes will have the minimum capital that is required and anything that matters.” Meanwhile, the number of commercial banks currently operating in the country has been reduced to 25 from 27. It follows the acquisition of TTB by ECOBANK and Intercontinental bank by Access Bank.