ACCRA, Ghana — Former Minister and Presidential aspirant, Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, had high hopes for the revival of his defunct financial entity, GN Bank.
Dr. Nduom was confident that the new government administration, led by President John Mahama, would help restore the banking license.
“I am hopeful that this new administration will recognize the value we brought to the sector and work with us to restore what was unfairly taken away,” he said in a speech at the 30th-anniversary celebration of Coconut Grove Beach Resort in Elmina.
But hopes of reviving the bank may not come to fruition.
This week, the Bank of Ghana definitively ruled out the restoration of GN Bank’s banking license.
The decision was announced by the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Johnson Asiama, citing a Supreme Court ruling.
“There is a Supreme Court ruling on that matter. The review also failed. So, nothing can be done,” Dr. Asiama said in a recent interview, referring to a series of legal setbacks that culminated in the highest court’s refusal to overturn the license revocation.
A Campaign for Restoration
The controversy surrounding GN Bank is rooted in the 2019 “clean-up” of Ghana’s financial sector, a sweeping regulatory overhaul that saw the central bank revoke the licenses of several dozen lenders, microfinance companies, and investment firms.
The Bank of Ghana argued the exercise was necessary to prevent a total systemic collapse, citing widespread insolvency and mismanagement.
GN Bank, which began in 1997 as First National Savings and Loans before obtaining a universal banking license in 2014, had positioned itself as the “People’s Bank,” boasting one of the largest branch networks in the country.
However, regulators claimed that sufficient capital buffers did not support this rapid expansion.
In August 2019, the bank was downgraded to a savings and loans company and shortly thereafter had its license revoked entirely.
Dr. Nduom has consistently challenged this narrative, attributing the bank’s liquidity crisis to the government’s failure to pay debts owed to contractors who were, in turn, clients of the bank.
He argued that if the state had settled its arrears, the bank would have remained solvent.
The Finality of the Law
Despite persistent rumors in local media that a deal was being brokered to restore the license, Dr. Asiama’s comments suggest that the regulatory door is not just closed, but bolted.
The Supreme Court’s refusal to review its earlier decision against the bank appears to be the definitive legal roadblock.
The Governor noted that while the institution itself cannot return, the central bank remains open to new license applications—provided the applicants are not connected to the directors or leadership of the defunct GN Savings and Loans.
