The Bank of Ghana has retracted its earlier report suggesting that GN Bank offers the lowest rate on mortgages in the country.
The latest Annual Percentage Rates [APR] and Average Interest [AI] report released by the central bank showed that GN Bank’s 15.1 percent rate on mortgages was the lowest followed by Standard Chartered bank whose rate ranges between 18.4 percent and 28 percent.
But it has rather emerged that the figure quoted by GN Bank pertains to staff of the bank as it does not offer any mortgages to the public.
It has also emerged that Standard Chartered Bank also does not offer mortgage loans.
Commenting on the development, the Public Relations Officer of the Bank of Ghana, Bernard Otabil admitted that the development is an error.
“GN Bank gave us a mortgage rate which presumably we would have thought was looking at it from their staff point of view and actually put it at a column that is supposed to be for the public,” he explained.
He however explains that the BoG went ahead since the figure was confirmed by GN Bank.
“I wouldn’t have thought so in the first place because what we should really also recognize is the fact that this is data that we are churning out and it is not only the central bank that is putting the data together but the data is provided by GN Bank and we have email correspondence from GN Bank telling the BoG to get the data published,” Mr. Otabil added.
Meanwhile Mr. Otabil says the BoG cannot be said to have failed in this instance for its seeming inability to avert the development.
“The most important thing that has to be considered before jumping to that conclusion is the issue of materiality, that is, to what extent does this issue affected the general publication,” he explained.
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