The FlowWealth Podcast · Episode 11
Inside a Ghanaian Bank Balance Sheet
What the published accounts of a Ghanaian bank actually tell you, what they conceal, and why provisioning notes are the most informative pages in an annual report — with a former banking supervisor.
· 48 min · Hosted by Efua Mensimah Danso
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Audio for this episode is not yet attached. Episodes are published to Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube on release.
Illustrative sample. This episode was written to demonstrate FlowWealth’s publication format and is not a published research view. Figures are illustrative and must not be relied upon for any decision.
Guest
Kojo Amankwah-Sarpong
Former Banking Supervisor, Financial sector regulator
Spent over a decade in banking supervision, covering on-site examination and prudential policy through the 2017–19 sector clean-up.
Key Takeaways
- Reported profit is a choice as much as an outcome, because provisioning involves judgement.
- The composition of interest income between loans and securities reveals how a bank is actually making money.
- Capital adequacy ratios are a floor, not a target, and proximity to the minimum is informative.
- Comparing banks requires reading the notes, since headline ratios are not consistently defined across institutions.
Bank financial statements are among the least read and most informative documents published in Ghana. This conversation works through what they contain, from the perspective of someone who spent a decade examining them professionally.
The central theme is that reported profitability involves judgement — particularly in how much a bank sets aside against loans that may not be repaid — and that two banks reporting similar profits can be holding materially different views about the quality of their own loan books.
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction
- 4:00Where a bank's money comes from
- 15:00Provisioning as a judgement call
- 27:00Reading capital ratios
- 38:00What supervision looks for
Topics Discussed
- How to read a bank income statement
- Provisioning and what it reveals
- Capital adequacy in practice
- Lessons from the sector clean-up
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