Mr. William Panford Bray, Managing Director of the Bank, who announced this in Accra on Monday at a meeting organised by the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), said the bank hopes to reduce its staff of 3,201 by 1,000 by the close of the year.
The meeting, which is the third in a series, has so far hosted SSB Bank and Standard Chartered Bank.
It is to afford the media, brokers and analysts of the stock market the opportunity to interact with managers of listed equities.
Explaining the rational for the decision, Mr. Bray said: "we have been sleeping for too long but this is the time for us to take measures that will sustain the improvements recorded by the bank in 1999.
"Management will face the wrath of workers if we cut down on the size of the staff but there is no other option” he said.
Mr. Bray compared GCB to some foreign-owned commercial banks saying, "they have about 500 to 600 in their workforce and have recorded excellent performance due to heavy reliance on information technology for transaction."
"We are capable of doing what they are doing but all that we need is the resources for the proper work force size."
The Managing Director said the workers' union is in agreement and is negotiating with management on the issue.
Mr Panford Bray said the bank’s other strategy to boost performance is to close about 20 local branches that are not performing well. The 20 branches would be handed over to the local communities, which would handle them as rural banks after approval by the Bank of Ghana.
He said even though the bank's performance in 1999 was an improvement on 1998 when it ceded its London branch, it could still have done better. The bank also lost large deposits to the Bank of Ghana and faced stiff competition in the industry besides it did not have its full strength to work with as some management staff had been removed.
To "resurrect" the bank, Mr Bray said, management held a meeting to come out with strategies. Price WaterhouseCoopers was also consulted for an independent opinion on the way forward after which the bank began implementing the restructuring exercise.
Mr. Bray said a lot was achieved last year, which saw a record profit after tax of 62.5 billion cedis as against 32.3 billion cedis recorded in 1998.
Dividend went up by 11 per cent while savings mobilisation increased by 32 per cent.
He said efforts would be concentrated on exports, agricultural and manufacturing sectors where GCB can perform better.
The bank has so far acquired some credit facilities for this purpose and would also concentrate on treasury management.
Sixteen of the bank's branches are networked and it is hoped that by May this year, about 65 would be networked to make GCB the biggest networked bank in the country. He said some of the staffs were being re-trained to equip them for the purpose.
The Managing Director said when this is achieved, "the bank's customers would be able to access their accounts from their homes and offices instead of wasting time behind counters and having their statements hand written."
He said plans are underway to solicit assistance of the judiciary for the banks to redeem loans from debtors since loan recovery has become very difficult.
Mr Bray challenged brokers to do their best to increase the value of the GCB shares in view of improvements in performance.
Trading in GCB after the meeting saw its share price moving up from Friday's close of 910 cedis to 950 cedis with investors buying 2,700 shares. The lowest price quoted was 915 cedis.
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