For the second time this year, the 9th Ghana Banking Awards, which was expected to come off last Saturday, has been slated for July 31, 2010 due to technical reasons. According to the organizers of the event, Corporate Initiative Ghana (CIG), the researchers and survey teams encountered unprecedented challenges during the collection and collation of data, which delayed the submission of the survey report for the awards. Additionally, the report, which was expected by May 26, 2010 for evaluation, was received on June 1, 2010. It explained that since it would take the event statisticians at least 10 working days to clean, evaluate and analysis the data, it needed to observe this minimum 10 day evaluation and analysis period to safeguard the integrity of the awards. This is because organizing the process in a short period of time might seriously affect the results and jeopardize the determination of category winners, and the overall winner, and therefore the awards had to be postponed. CIG, in a statement, said it deemed it prudent not to organize the awards during the World Cup tournament and its immediate aftermath since Ghanaians are focused on the impending 2010 World Cup. 24 banks operating in the country are vying for about 18 awards, including the ultimate Bank of The Year Award. Some of the awards include Financial Performance, Growing Bank, Short Term Loan Financing and Retail Banking. Others are Corporate Social Responsibility, Competitive Pricing, Customer Care, Trade Financing and Long Term Loan Financing. Three new categories, Mortgage, Savings and Agric Financing might be included in this year’s event as it was considered by the technical committee. Already, the banks are preparing for the big event with last year’s ultimate winner, Zenith Bank optimistic of snatching the award once again. CAL Bank, which won the Best Bank in Retail Banking, Medium Term Loan Financing and Product Innovation in the last two editions, is also optimistic of snatching the Best Bank Award, while Stanbic Bank, the Best Company in 2008, according to the Ghana Investment Promotion Center Ghana Club 100 rankings, is expected to translate its form into the banking awards. Source: Business Guide/Ghana