Rokel Commercial Bank (RCB): Best Bank Governance Sierra Leone 2019

Rokel Commercial Bank (RCB) traces its roots back over a century, when it was a Barclays subsidiary in Sierra Leone. The bank has been locally owned and operated since 1999, with the government as majority shareholder, 65 percent following a recent recapitalisation — and the remaining shares are held by private institutions, organisations, and individuals. There are seven RCB branches in Sierra Leone’s capital city and nearly as many provincial branches, where more than 370 RCB team members strive to uphold the bank’s core values of customer centricity, integrity, initiative, dedication, teamwork, and continuous improvement. RCB welcomed a new Managing Director and CEO in 2017, Dr. Walton Ekundayo Gilpin, who wasted no time in aligning bank policy with a strategic vision to move the institution forward. The board is made up of 36 senior management team members and four sub-committees (finance, audit, credit, and human resources and administration). The bank follows a strict code of corporate governance and schedules regular meetings to ensure its implementation throughout the network. It reviews and updates policies every three years and conducts internal and external audits annually. RCB ranks among the top three Sierra Leone banks in terms of total assets and plans to leverage its comprehensive suite of digital and mobile banking services to capture more of the country’s massive unbanked population. The CFI.co judging panel presents Rokel Commercial Bank with the 2019 award for Best Bank Governance (Sierra Leone).