ACCESSBANK LIBERIA LTD BIDS FAREWELL TO FIRST CEO

On Friday, July 30, 2010 beginning at 7:00 p.m. at the Rose Garden Plaza in Monrovia, the Management, staff and friends of AccessBank Liberia Limited held a dinner to bid farewell to Ms. Mary Clare Odong, the Bank’s First CEO.

Mary, on July 31, 2010 ends a period of nearly two years of working with AccessBank Liberia Limited.  From her first visit to Liberia in September 2007 to begin a review of situations that prompted the indicators in the first feasibility study for a microfinance bank in Liberia to the actualization of the studies into a full-fledged microfinance bank, Ms. Odong had exerted herself every step of the way and savored the praises lavished upon her last night.

THE BEGINNING

After Mary’s first visit in September, 2007, she began work on the preparatory stage for the establishment of Bank.  In early 2008 she returned to Liberia and set up an office for the organization of the Bank.  Mary had been seconded to this project by LFS Financial System GMBH of Berlin, Germany, a consultancy firm engaged by the shareholders of the proposed AccessBank Liberia Limited.  After establishing an office and recruiting locally some operational staffs, she was later joined in April 2008 by others such as Peter Konopka, Alida Ismayilova, Nadja Zaggren and another expat staff who left in December 2008.

Together and under her astute leadership, the began carried on the final works on the establishment of the first branch of AccessBank Liberia Limited.  In that process, they obtained the provisional license from the Central Bank of Liberia.    In December 2008, the recruited and trained staffs for the Retail and Credit Departments as well as the Administrative staffs of the Head Office moved into the newly refurbished building at the corner of Ashmun and Johnson Streets.

On January 20, 2009, the Central Bank of Liberia issued the Banking License to AccessBank Liberia Limited.

In Juanary 2009, the bank, under the leadership and drive of Mary Clare Odong made a groundbreaking achievement when from the 20th to the 31st it disbursed 25 microloans valued at US$35,500.00.  This was remarkable achievement because at no time had a bank in Liberia disbursed any loan in its first month of operations.

Mary and ABL first money