The Bank of Ghana is conducting a diagnostic study on Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions (SDIs) before setting the new capital requirement for the tier two category of financial institutions.

This will also enable the Central Bank to know the true position of the savings and loans, finance houses and rural and community banks.

The present minimum capital for savings and loans and finance houses is ¢15 million.

Banking Consultant, Richmond Atuahene told Joy Business the diagnostic exercise will help improve the books of the institutions.

According to him, it will be difficult for any financial regulator to set up a capital limit before the exercise is completed as some savings and loans are still figuring out on how to reduce their non-performing loans.

“Until they complete this exercise it will be very difficult for anyone to set up a capital limit because there is a serious diagnostic study to see some of the savings, microfinance and the rural banks.

"Some of them, they are still doing their homework to find out that to clean the bad loan position and the non-performing assets…to see what capital total level will be set just like the banks”, he mentioned.

He added, “It will be too early to call for any capital and we need to exercise restraint and let Bank of Ghana complete this diagnostic exercise and when they have finished, they will come out and tell us that, this will be the new capital regime for the SDIs.”

Presently, there are 25 savings and loans companies in Ghana, after the clean-up of the sector. 

They include SIC Savings and Loans, Seeds Funds, Opportunity International and Multi Credit.

There are also 11 finance houses operating in the country.