Team Details

Amadou Sawanoe Koora
Director, Financial Sector and Payment Systems Department
Mr. Amadou S. Koora holds a BSC degree in Economics (Hons. Accounting) from the Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone and Masters in Business Administration
(MBA) from the University of Birmingham. He was appointed Director, Financial Sector and Payment Systems Department effective March 1, 2022, and started work on same
date.
He started work at the Auditor General’s Office, now called the National Audit Office, from October 1990 to September 1999. where he rose through the ranks from Audit
Clerk to Senior Auditor. Then, he switched to join the Central Bank of The Gambia (CBG) on September 27, 1999.
Preceding his appointment as the Director, Financial Sector and Payment Systems Department, he was the Director, Banking Supervision Department, CBG, from May
2017 until his secondment to WAIFEM on March 1, 2022. At the CBG, he was appointed as a Banking Officer and rose through the ranks to become the Director of Banking
Supervision Department in May 2017.
Over the two decades at the CBG, Mr. Amadou S. Koora, had been involved in a number of major official engagements, Key among these include:

1. Part of the study tour team to the Bahrain Monetary Authority (Central Bank of Bahrain), Kingdom of Bahrain, on the feasibility of introducig the Sukuk products
   and takaful (Islamic Insurance) scheme in The Gambia’s Financial market. Thisstudy tour and reports generated, and the materials gathered therefrom resulted
   in the successful launching and introduction of the products in the financialmarkets of The Gambia. The background to the study tour was the need to put
   the Islamic financial institutions in The Gambia on the same competitive footing with the conventional financial institutions, in terms of avenues for liquidity
   management. The Islamic financial institutions, by virtue of their Islamic religious underpinnings, could not use interest generating related products such as, the
   Treasury Bills and government bonds, in their liquidity management toolkit. Please note that these products (Sukuks) have been made available to the
   conventional financial institutions as well.
2.  Mr. Amadou. S. Koora served on the CBG Basel II and the Deposit Insurance scheme policy formulation committees of the CBG. The translation of the
   recommendations therefrom into tangible results remained works -in- progress up to the time of his departure for secondment to WAIFEM on March 1, 2022.
3. Participated in the tour to Bangalore, India, for the User Acceptance test thatpreceded the successful launching of the Vregcoss supervisory electronic data
   rendition system version 1.0 in 2013. As the Director, Banking Supervision Department, championed the seamless migration of the vregcoss system from version 1.0 to a more robust version 2.0.
4. Had been serving as the CBG Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member from May 17, 2022, up to the time of taking up his secondment to WAIFEM as the Director Financial Sector and payment systems Department on March 1, 2022.
5. Over the period, he travelled extensively/ globally to attend/participate in training programs, meetings and conferences on Central Banking in general and banking supervision & regulation matters, in particular. These, tremendously help to enhance his capacity and sharpen his skills in several areas of Central Banking. Mr. Amadou S. Koora translated these acquired skills into practice, through his participations in the onsite examinations, offsite examinations, policy analysis and review works of The Banking Supervision Department of the CBG, for the more than two decades of engagement.

Mr. Amadou S. Koora is married with seven children
Email address” Akoora@waifem-cbp.org