Management of investment bank Databank has decided that its employees will work from home until further notice, citing physical and verbal abuse suffered by its workers at the hands of the bank’s customers. In a statement issues via its digital channels, the bank blamed macro economic factors affecting the countries for its woes.
Read part of the statement below:
Many of our clients have tried to be patient with us as we wait for the Government to provide liquidity. For this, we are extremely grateful. However, there are several clients who have felt the need to abuse our staff physically and verbally, and also threaten their lives as well as their families. As such, we have no choice but to move to a work-from-home option.While our offices will be physically closed, we will continue to serve you and process transactions remotely, and all our digital channels will remain open just as we did during Covid. However, we cannot endanger the lives of staff by opening the office without any available liquidity.
The bank also stated that it is in talks with regulators to provide liquidity support which will help it meet customer withdrawal requests:
We are currently engaging with the Ministry of Finance, our Regulator (The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)), and the Ghana Securities Industry Association regarding the impact of the debt exchange on Databank’s mutual funds as well as other Collective Investment Schemes. As part of these discussions, the SEC issued a notice to Market Operators (SEC/CIR/005/12/22) on December 9, 2022, indicating its intent to support the market with much-needed liquidity relief, including access to the Financial Stability Fund as a last resort. Therefore, we are hopeful that once the Debt Exchange Program has been concluded (expected settlement date: January 5, 2023), we will be able to access the necessary funds to once again pay withdrawal requests. We are totally reliant on the Government of Ghana to pay us, so we can in turn pay clients.
The bank hopes to resume working from the office by January 23rd, by which time it hopes to be able to give customers their funds.
