20 collapsed microfinance firms to settle depositors with own funds – Receiver

Some of the collapsed microfinance companies say they will be paying customers their full deposits, according to their Receiver.

Eric Nipah, Receiver for the Microfinance and Microcredit institutions whose licences were revoked in May, said about 20 of them have assured that “they are willing and able to make a 100 per cent payment to all their creditors, including depositors.”

“The value of these deposits; those that have been received, are in excess of GHc100 million. So this sub-segment of the depositor base relates to operators who have come out to say that they do not need government funds to settle their depositor obligations.”

Speaking in an interview, Mr. Nipah added that his outfit was “satisfied they [the microfinance companies] have the means to pay 100 percent of their total liabilities.”

These microfinance firms account for about 6,000 of the affected depositors in the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) cleanup of the microfinance sector.

In all, the BoG revoked the licenses of 347 microfinance institutions in the country.

The Reciever commenced the payment of the claims made by customers of the microfinance companies, which had been verified on June 7

The Reciever received over 152, 000 claims valued at GHc1.4 billion from customers of the microfinance companies and verified about 80, 000 of them, which were valued at GHc 600 million.

The government has so far made GHc 900 million cedis available for the payment of the claims of depositors.