A group known as the Coalition of Affected Savings and Loans Customers who have their monies locked up with defunct First Allied Savings and Loans Ltd which is one of the 23 collapsed finance house companies is demanding from the Receiver Mr. Eric Nipah, a clear roadmap to paying their monies to them.

The group which is made up of over 700 customers based in Europe say they have several millions of cedis locked up with the collapsed financial firm, a worrying situation which has made life very uncomfortable for them.

“Many of us have huge sums of monies locked up with the collapsed First Allied Savings and Loans Ltd. Personally, I have over GHC400,000 cedis locked up. For now, all we want the Receiver to tell us is how and when the monies we toiled to make will be paid back to us. We want to see that plan that will ensure that we eventually get our monies back. Times are hard and it is important that there’s no delay in releasing our monies to us.

“We have over the years defied the cold weather condition in Europe and have worked hard to come back to Ghana and invest. Is this the price we pay for coming home to invest the monies we sweated and toiled to make?,” Justice Amankwa Leader of the Europe-based customers said in an interview with Kasapafmonline.com.

Customers of First Allied and Savings Ltd. had been agitating for their monies to be paid a year before it was eventually collapsed by the Bank of Ghana in August 2019.

Following the banking sector clean up in 2018, many First Allied and Savings Ltd customers rushed to withdraw their savings, a situation the company said made it difficult for it to make any meaningful investments and make returns that will allow it pay the remaining clients.

Since 1996, First Allied has been operating as a licensed savings and loans company in Ghana.

In March 2018 Bank of Ghana found the company to be insolvent and therefore closed it down in August 2019.

Bank of Ghana revoked the license of First Allied because of the following:

  • Failure to meet customers’ deposit withdrawals. This issue was particularly more pronounced at the Adabraka and Kumasi branches.
  • Abnormally negative net worth.
  • Failure to submit prudential returns to BoG since June 2018 on account of technical issues.
  • Non-performing loans way in excess of 88.89% of the company’s total loan portfolio.
  • Issues with capital adequacy.