Shareholders of HFC Bank have voted for the Board of Directors to raise 50 million cedis on the Ghana Stock Exchange as well as rebrand as Republic Bank Ghana.
The funds are meant to help the bank meet the 120 million cedis capital requirement announced by the Bank of Ghana in 2013.
Speaking to shareholders at an Extra Ordinary General Meeting, the Chairman of the board of HFC Bank, Charles Zwenes explained that the decision was long taken before the Bank of Ghana announced the new capital requirement.
He explained that HFC Bank with support from its parent company, Republic Bank with a financial strength of over 10 billion dollars is in a position to meet the current 400 million cedis capital requirement announced by the Bank of Ghana.
“What we are doing is we are first of all complying with a current threshold requirement, later on, we would look at compliant with a subsequent threshold requirement which is not yet in force. We have until December 2018 to comply with the subsequent requirement, but the current requirement is what we are doing now. Since it has to do with deeping money in our respective pockets, we are adopting a softly approach,” he said.
Assuring the shareholders, Mr. Zwenes stated that the bank has strong financial strength to meet the capital requirement without trouble.
“This bank in which you own shares is not in the same category or classification as UT Bank. I am happy to assure you that, and secondly when the time comes as you say, I can assure that we can get the current 400 million cedis capital requirement announced by the Bank of Ghana”.
The shareholders also voted to change the name of the bank to Republic Bank Ghana.
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