The ARB Apex Bank is seeking an experienced consultancy firm to provide specialized expertise on agency banking for the under-served and low-income segment of the population for the Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) on a contract basis.
The ARB Apex Bank was established with support from the World Bank and other development partners and started operations in July 2002. Its core mandate is to improve the delivery of services to RCBs and complement the supervisory role of the Bank of Ghana. The Apex Bank has 10 branches located in all the regional capitals and an agency at Hohoe in the Volta Region. It currently offers multiple services to the RCBs, including the provision of ICT services, cash management, custody of members’ primary reserves, mobile money, domestic and international money transfers and serves as the settlement bank for cheque clearing for all the RCBs.
There are 144 licensed RCBs operating from 800 office locations, both head offices and branches across the country. At present all the offices are connected via satellite and radio links and operate from a single instance of Temenos T24 software located at the head office of the ARB Apex Bank in Accra.
The RCBs are the main providers of formal financial services to the low-income population segment of the economy living in the rural communities in Ghana. The RCBs offer deposit, saving and credit products, money transfers and payment services (ATM and Mobile Banking). RCBs have a total of 6 million accounts of which 50% are dormant (inactive for 24months). The greater part of rural communities lack technology infrastructure like telecommunication and internet connectivity and majority of the rural populace are either unbanked or under-banked.