Bank of Baroda has again emerged as the most profitable bank in Ghana for 2015 according to the latest Price Water House Coopers Ghana Banking Survey rankings.

According to the rankings, Indian Bank of Baroda came on top out of the 27 banks ranked having made about 86 percent return on funds that it managed in 2015. 

CAL Bank placed in second with a 52 percent return on funds managed.

The rankings showed that overall industry profit before tax declined strongly to GH¢2.5 billion due to a substantial, increase in loans that the banks fear might go bad or what the technical people in the industry call impairment charges. 

The 2016 Ghana Banking Survey revealed that there were some shifts in the top or first quartile banks in the country.

These are banks seen as the biggest in the country in terms of profits, return on equity, share of industry deposits, and loan advances.

Ecobank, GCB Bank, Stanbic, Fidelity and Unibank made the first quartile banks in the country, while Standard Chartered Bank and Zenith dropped to the second quartile set of banks which also includes UBA, Access Bank, National Investment Bank (NIB), Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) and Societe General. 

Ecobank maintained the top spot as the biggest bank in the country in terms of assets as the rankings showed that it has almost GH¢6 billion in total assets as at the end of 2015. 

However, GCB came up as the bank with the highest impairment charge among the first quartile banks with an industry deposits increased to Gh¢42 billion as at the end of December2015 from GH¢36 billion in 2014. 

Ecobank again came on top as having the largest share of industry deposits and loan advances. 

FBN Bank Ghana was ranked the number one of  27 banks when it comes to net interest margins whereas Royal Bank was more efficient in managing the loans it gave out.  

Click here to read the survey report