Organisers of the Ghana Banking Awards, Corporate Initiative Ghana [CIG], say they will soon roll out an award scheme designed specifically to reward Rural and Community banks operating in the country. The awards scheme will roll on the back of CIG’s organization of the Ghana Banking Awards for a decade. Speaking on Multi TV’s current affairs show, pm: EXPRESS, the Chief Host and Chairman of the Ghana Banking Awards’ Planning Committee, Willing Vanderpuije said the group has been working on an awards programme for Rural and Community banks in the country. “We worked very hard with the association to develop a methodology for the rural banking sector”, he said, adding that a meeting was held on Tuesday over the proposed awards “and we will very soon be making a fresh approach.” Mr. Vanderpuije indicated, “we have a large number of Rural Banks in this country but we have developed a strategy to make sure that they also participate and mind you MiDA [the Millennium Development Authority] has supported all the Rural Banks around the country. They’ve improved upon their human resource capacity, they’ve improved upon their financial capacity, they’ve equipped them with software and hardware, they’ve given them generators all over the country such that they are also operating like any other first class bank.” According to him “we do believe that is where the future is because they are at the grassroots so we want to get in there and support them, we want to get in there and give them this healthy competition so that they know that their clients or customers are watching them, they’re interested in them. So the rural banking thing definitely is a must and that’s the next area to go for us”. The Chief Host of the Banking Awards noted that a separate event will be held to reward outstanding Rural and Community banks in the country. “We will organise an award for them because they are in a different tranche. So we will have the Ghana Rural Community Banking Awards because some of them are called Community Banks” he said. He explained that the idea behind the organization of this award is to showcase the contributions the Rural and Community banks are making to the economy at the grassroots level. Mr. Vanderpuije explained the aim of the Banking Awards is to “ensure that there is healthy competition among the banks, to bring about service quality, improved service delivery and also competitive pricing in what they do. Against the backdrop of the evolving economy, they’ve been doing well but by and large I think we’ve achieved our aim of getting them to compete in a healthy manner and to move up the ladder all the time.”