Stanbic Bank Ghana was awarded Best Bank in Cocoa Financing at the Ghana Cocoa Awards, held at the Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City, Accra. The awards ceremony was organised under the auspices of Ghana Cocoa Board, and aimed at recognising key players in the cocoa sector for their contribution to growth and sustainability of the cocoa industry.
Receiving the award, Mr. Charles Amoabeng Nkrumah, Sector Head for Consumer Banking-Stanbic Bank, indicated that the strategic position held by the cocoa sector in the country’s development informs the bank’s support for the sector.
“Standard Bank, the parent bank of Stanbic Bank Ghana, has as its mantra ‘Africa is our home, we drive her growth’. Africa’s economic growth is underpinned largely by natural resources; namely agribusiness, mining, and oil and gas. With cocoa being a key agri-commodity, it presents a strategic fit to the bank’s mantra and growth pillars; and this is our motivation for supporting the sector,” Nkrumah said.
Ghana’s cocoa sector employs over 800,000 farmer households; it’s the major foreign exchange contributor and a key monetary policy tool of the central bank, contributing significantly to the country’s GDP. The cocoa industry is estimated at US$15bn in size, with most of the value concentrated in the secondary and tertiary sections of the value chain. With Ghana’s strategy being to process at least 50% of our cocoa locally for export, the bank believes we have a lot of scope for growth and further support.
Stanbic Bank has over the past few years cemented its pedigree as the best and most active bank in financing cocoa-related transactions in Ghana. These activities cut across the entire value chain of the sector, namely:
- Ghana cocoa Board annual cocoa syndication
- Ghana Cocoa Board medium-term facilities
- The licenced Buying Companies’ annual cocoa funding
- Cocoa processing and related transactions
- Cocoa inputs, suppliers’ funding for chemicals and fertilisers
- Logistics companies for warehousing and transportation
- Workplace and personal Banking for sector players
Stanbic Bank sees the cocoa sector as a critical pillar in Ghana’s socio-economic development, and as such is committed to supporting the sector.
