Bank of Ghana's (BoG) decision to increase the minimum capital requirement for commercial banks has received endorsement from two banking heavyweights.

Immediate Group Chief Executive of Ecobank, Albert Essien and Chairman and owner of UBA, Tony Elumelu, believe there could not be a better time to carry out the action.

Chief Executive of Ecobank, Albert Essien, said Ghana needs very strong banks, and thinks increased capital requirement would provide that.

“Size for me is important in banking”, he said, adding the reason Ghanaian banks are unable to fund big projects either for private or state companies is due to a lack of adequate capital.

“Look at COCOBOD raising funds, how many real local institutions participated except for Ecobank? So I think that raising capital limits for banks is in the right direction”, he said.

UBA’s Tony Elumelu also said “there is significant benefits in doing that”.

He said the more capitalized banks in Ghana and other developing countries are, the better for their economies in terms of facilitating infrastructural developments.

Currently new institutions wanting to set up Bank in Ghana require about 100 million Ghana cedis as minimum capital before they can be given the license to operate. 

The regulator has announced that it will soon increase this figure based on a commercial bank’s level of risk.