Mr. Arnold Parker, managing director of the African Finance Bureau (AFB) Ghana, is the SIA-Africa Person of the Month for May 2018.
Parker, is an alumnus of Accra Academy, an SIA-Africa beneficiary school. As an organization, we are inspired by Parker's selfless dedication to developing systems geared toward creating wealth for people, especially the youth, in Africa. Most importantly, we are excited by his commitment to give back to education.
AFB in March 2018 launched an Education Solution to support the educational sector in collaboration with the Ghana National Association of Private Schools. Parker, through AFB, committed $10 million to finance school projects, asset acquisition and personal loans for all parties within the country’s educational system, committing to help “improve Ghanaian lives by ensuring access to good quality education.”
Parker was formerly the head of commercial banking at Access Bank as well as head of treasury sales and product development at Intercontinental Bank, and is also passionate about, technology driven, efficient transportation infrastructure and urban city design planning, aligning with SIA-Africa's mission.
He is a proponent of electronic banking and digital transactions, noting many people that work long hours at their jobs were starting to realize that electronic banking was the way forward, prompting banks to invest heavily in digital infrastructure. Digital financing also helps catalyze economic growth as projects have less of an opportunity to be stalled. "One of the things that worries us most is when we see uncompleted houses and projects. A lot of people try to buy land and it takes them forever to develop that. So once you have people beginning to have access to financing, what then happens is that their personal projects begin to be done with speed, there is demand in the economy; people are buying cement, more blocks, employing masons, employing carpenters," Parker said in a recent African News feature story.
For his long-standing commitment to education, the youth of Africa and his work to help Africans gain better access to financing, Mr. Arnold Parker has been named SIA-Africa Person of the Month for May 2018.
