Banks in Africa have been advised to re-strategise their risk management system to enable them provide loans to viable businesses. Speaking at the two-day 2nd annual African Banking & Financial Institutions Conference in Accra on Wednesday, John Gibling, Managing Director of Financial Institutions Ratings of Standard and Poor’s, said most banks in Africa have had high interest rates because they do not know their customers very well to tailor their products to meet their specific needs. The conference is targeted at financial services executives representing a wide range of institutions with a strong desire to stay abreast with evolving global regulatory issues, enhance technical knowledge and exploit growing financial services and opportunities. Using South Africa as a case in point, John Gibling noted that the country was able to manage the global economic crisis due to the good risk management system it has in place. Explaining further, Mr Gibling told Myjoyonline.com: “When you understand your customers you can differentiate on pricing. [A bank can] say this customer has a very high risk and therefore the interest should be very high. On the other hand, there are others in the community, which may have very good risks, may have good cash flow, they may have good jobs and therefore the interest rate they should be charged should be lower.” By so doing, he noted, the financial institutions could bring more people into the banking sector and increase the economic wealth of the country they operate in. He also advised the non-formal sector to develop confidence in the banks, which he said are safer in keeping their money. Malcolm Buamah, Managing Partner of First Vault, a UK based private consultancy who are the organizers of the conference, told Myjoyonline.com that the conference was instituted after the global economic crisis to look at new opportunities, financing, regulations and risks in the banking sector. “What the conference is attempting to do is to move forward from that position and to see what is happening, what is likely to happen and what the future trends are likely to look like,” he explained. The conference is expected to cover technical issues stemming from the global regulatory revolution including but not limited to Basel III, Solvency II, stress tests, regional sovereign risk, macro-economic trends, projections, capitalization, liquidity, governance, risk management, compliance, money laundering among others. Story by Isaac Essel/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana