The founder of the defunct Unique Trust Bank (UT) has recounted details of how he discovered that his financial institution had been collapsed by the Central Bank.
According to him, he had no indication whatsoever that the bank was going to become insolvent by the financial sector regulator; Bank of Ghana when it undertook a clean-up exercise
Speaking in an interview with GTV Breakfast Show on February 17, 2023, Prince Amoabeng said, “It was a normal day for me in my village and I had even spoken to the finance minister [Ken Ofori-Atta] a day earlier. We spoke and he asked how the bank was doing and we talked about our families and I later went to bed”.
“I was probably the last person to hear about the takeover of UT bank because I woke up like normal on that day, had my coffee and on my way to the bathroom I checked my phone and saw about 60 missed calls”.
He adds that the spate of missed calls made him more concerned about his family because he was not steadily thinking too much about the bank as he had resigned from it in 2015 with the closure taking place in 2017.
“At the time, I wasn’t at the helm of affairs at UT Bank while I was trying to put my life together so my first thought was not with the bank...so I called my daughter to find out what was going on and then she asked me to check the news where I found out that the BoG was taking over UT bank and withdrew its license”.
"There was no indication given to me or by people around to show that the bank [UT] was going to be collapsed. I didn’t have a clue,” the UT bank boss said.
In the late 1990s, UT Bank was known as UT Financial Services, a non-bank financial services provider (NBFI). It became UT Bank in 2010 and had its license revoked by the Central Bank in 2017, essentially collapsing it.
