After last year's successful adventure, I have returned to Ghana to complete a 10 week internship at Fidelity Bank. When I first arrived at the office, the initial reaction was surprisingly, surprise. The flailing of arms accompanied cries of innocence. "Welcome back my brother!" "We did not know when you would come!" "Have you said hello to ... ?" "Where did you say you wanted to work again?" Shocking after the multitude of emails I sent, yet in hindsight, I was home. This was typical Ghanaian efficiency.
After the initial shock of my arrival, I was quickly introduced to the team of "Fidelity Securities Limited" which is the investment banking and wholly owned subsidiary of Fidelity Bank and a member of the Fidelity Group. The team consisted of Nana, Nii, Nii, Salase, Liana, Alfred, Comfort, John, Sara, Akwasi, and Tom T. I have grown to be part of the FSL family in no time.
Rather than discuss the workings and basic structure of FSL which can be found on the website being launched soon that I had a small part in helping along. I thought I would showcase the bizarre and wonderful aspects of Finance in Ghana which distinguishes Ghana from the western cultures we are so used to and makes my time here a very unique experience.
On my first day in the office among many other introductions and pep talks, Nii Okai, the client relationship manager, took time out to try and prepare me for what was to come. "Alex, if a company gets rid of its entire board, what do you think will happen to the stock price?" without hesitating I replied, "It will plummet". (Obviously thinking that this indicates risk thus resulting in decreased investor confidence resulting in a drop in price.) "In the west, I would agree, in Ghana, the stock price goes up." Nii then proceeded to tell me how textbooks have been produced through the observations on developed markets and how smaller markets such as Ghana have very specific quirks that can seem very illogical to students of finance. In Ghana, there can be a large deviation between theory and reality as I would come to learn.
Therefore, although the systems in place may look simple from afar. (for example there is almost no derivatives market) The culture in Ghana is what makes this market and my experience so exciting.
Picture of me diligently looking over
the financial statements of Pro Credit
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