Fund management company Databank will reopen its independent branches on January 10, 2023 – the first time since December 22, 2022, following a shutdown resulting from physical and verbal attacks on its staff by some of its clients.
The staff of the fund management company have been working remotely and engaging clients on digital platforms since the closure but the company in an e-mail and text message to its clients on Saturday, January 7, 2023, said it “will apply a phased approach to re-opening” its physical locations.
The re-opening will commence on January 10 with business resuming at its independent branches located in Accra, Cape Coast, Ho, Koforidua, Kumasi, Sunyani, Takoradi, Tamale and Tema.
This will be followed by the re-opening of Databank co-locations within GTBank and UBA branches located in Accra, Ashaiman, Kasoa, Tarkwa, Wa and KNUST.
The company in an email to its clients last December said it had been affected by the liquidity challenges that have rocked the fund management industry owing to the “macro-economic crisis” facing the country.
It said the crisis had resulted in the company’s inability to pay withdrawal requests and impacted its original two-week estimate for withdrawals.
In an interaction with clients of the firm on Zoom on December 28, 2022, the Chief Executive Officer of the Databank Group, Kojo Addae-Mensah said the firm’s fixed income investments were in government of Ghana bonds which had been affected by the Ghana Domestic Debt Exchange (GDX) programme which was announced on December 5.
He said the announcement of the GDX resulted in the shutdown of the secondary market which denied the firm the ability to sell the bonds to meet client redemption requests.
He added that the secondary market was still closed, so his outfit was engaging the government to in the interim provide liquidity to meet client redemption requests.
Mr Addae-Mensah disclosed that his outfit had engaged security personnel to provide security for its staff and clients at its branches, but this was twisted by some media houses who reported it as intimidation of clients.