Deported ex-banker to start mortgage business in Ghana

A former banker who was deported from the UK to Ghana after being convicted of Britain’s biggest ever fraud has said he is planning to start a business in the mortgage industry in Ghana, according to Bloomberg news site.

The former UBS banker Kweku Adoboli was jailed in 2012 for fraud relating to unauthorised trading where he lost the bank £1.4bn ($1.8bn).

When he made a lot of money in trades he kept the money in a secret account. He used that money when he made big losses, pretending he had also traded in something which had increased in price.

But eventually he had a series of big losses and he told his bosses who reported him to the police.

He was born in Ghana and went to the UK when he was 12 but never applied for citizenship.

The UK’s policy is to deport any non-British citizens who have served more than a year in prison so he was deported in 2018.

Now, according to the interview with Bloomberg, he has found a venture in Ghana.

It says that he intends to be a middle man between home buyers who want to get loans for a property and investors who want to make money from the interest on those loans.

In the interview with Bloomberg he says that his platform would also help banks:

“Our job now is look for ways to expand banks’ balance sheet, to create a mortgage market that would allow us to increase demand-side funding for housing.”

Bloomberg points out that the norm in Ghana is to buy a plot of land and build slowly over a number of years rather than to get a home loan.

Source: BBC