Ghanaian-based Groupe Nduom invests $9 million in African American-owned ISF Bank

Ghanian-based Groupe Nduom has US$9 million into the African American-owned Illinois Service Federal Savings and Loan Association following a series of meetings with bank leaders and federal government officials. The bank, now known as the ISF Bank, has been seeking new capital to revitalize its operations.

“This is a major step for Africans, especially Ghanaians to start businesses here in the black community, and find our niche,” Papa Kwesi Ndoum, the company’s chairman and president, told a town hall meeting of Ghanaians and African Americans in Chicago recently.

Ndoum said the successful efforts of other immigrants should inspire Africans to work with African Americans for their mutual benefit.

“In the Jewish community, they find a way to help each other, and they have moved on. The Chinese start with little and move on, and the Koreans also come here and move on,” he noted. “So, we have this idea: What is it about African Americans, Africans, specifically Ghanaians? The African has talent, the African American has talent, the Ghanaian has talent; the problem is a lack of opportunity.”

He observed that there are problems in black communities, and they need to find solutions for them. Ndoum declared that with the new bank and other businesses, “we will begin to have influence and support our own.” The new bank will serve African Americans, Ghanaians, and the broader community, he said.

“The ISF Bank has a national license to do business anywhere in the U.S. It is like any other bank. If you put your money in the bank, it is ensured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) up to US$100,000,” he added.

Pledging support for the new bank, Ebenezer Nsiah, president of the Ghana National Council, announced that the council will withdraw US$10,000 from its current bank and deposit it with the ISF Bank. The announcement was greeted with wide applause with a corresponding pledge by Papa Ndoum that the new bank will support this year’s GhanaFest.

Urging all Ghanaian Americans to open accounts with the new bank, Nsiah said, “Our mission is to support businesses in the community, and this bank is a Ghanaian business. “If it is successful, it will have an impact on us. This is our opportunity to give support to Ghanaian businesses to be successful in Chicago.”

Rev. Dr. Al Sampson, a long-time pastor, and activist, who attended the meeting with a group of African Americans, also expressed support for the new bank.

Tracing the history of economic and political cooperation between Africans and African Americans, he hailed the 1957 meeting in Accra between U.S. Black Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., and Ghana’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah as a milestone in this direction. He indicated that new bank is a fulfillment of a dream of the 2 leaders to forge greater cooperation and progress for black people.

Sampson, who is president of the Economic Blueprint for Liberation and the Metro Area Black Trade Council, also recalled past efforts in Chicago for this purpose, and he called for renewed efforts to build more businesses and organizations linking black people.

Source: Ghanaweb