NIB organises seminar on new banking product (October 2, 2008,Page 54)

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah
THE National Investment Bank (NIB) Limited yesterday organised a day’s seminar for pastors and church administrators on its new banking product purposely designed to offer financial assistance to churches for their development projects.
Dubbed the “NIB Churchlink Account”, the product is a hybrid of a current account and an investment account specifically designed to offer churches high interest, the flexibility of a cheque book and a loan facility when required.
Presenting the product to the participants, the Head of Marketing and Corporate Banking of the NIB, Mr Clifford Mettle, said the product offered churches access to an unsecured overdraft amount of 40 per cent of the their monthly credit turnover, adding that the loan was available for virtually every purpose.
He said the bank would offer, among other things, free financial consultancy services, weekly mobile cash collection service on Sundays and after any major fund-raising activity to protect the money from robbers, as well as provide higher interest on savings.
Touching on the necessary requirements to qualify a church for those services, Mr Mettle said a church must be legitimately registered, should easily be located, be constitutionally governed and must have a well-constituted committee in place.
He explained that if a church was interested in the product but lacked any of those requirements, the bank was prepared to assist it to put them in place.
The Deputy Managing Director of the NIB, Mr K. Owusu Tweneboah, said the bank had already assisted some churches, such as the Methodist and the Catholic churches, financially to enable them to put up structures on their respective university campuses, adding that the launch was to offer the same opportunities to others.
Speaking on the topic, “The Bank and Church Financial Management”, the Vicar-General of the Accra Archdiocese of the Catholic Church, the Very Reverend Father Francis Adobole, said the church could effectively perform its function of evangelisation if there were competent human institutions to support that work through other means.
He said since the financial needs of the church was unlimited, some unhealthy practices had been introduced into church worship by church administrators to raise more funds and mentioned the introduction of what he termed “multiple offerings” at church services.
“This practice is making poor church members uncomfortable, as they are unable to cope with the rate at which demands are made of them,” he noted.
Rev Father Adobole advised church leaders to take advantage of the NIB Churchlink Account to enable their churches to benefit.
He advised the management of the bank to take concrete and practical steps to do away with bureaucracies and encumbrances known to be associated with certain banking operations in the country to enable the target group to access the facility easily.