Dr Alayande Folarin, a Vice President of MasterCard has stated that the Pan African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) will enhance interconnection to all the Central Banks and Afrexim bank. “For those who are familiar with the PAPSS, we know that there are existing mechanisms for similar settlements even though they are not connected to the Central Banks.” Vice President Folarin...
The cedi lost 19.2% in value to the US dollar in almost seven months of 2022. According to the Summary of Economic and Financial Data by the Bank of Ghana, the local currency went for ¢7.43 to the American ‘greenback’ on the interbank market as of July 22nd, 2022. It is however selling at about ¢8.30 pesewas to the US dollar...
The Bank of Ghana has issued a directive to banks in the country to allow non-resident Ghanaians who have not yet registered for or do not have access to their National ID cards to use their passports for banking transactions until they obtain their cards. This directive comes a few days after banks started demanding the Ghana card as the...
A total number of 4,936,246 debit cards was issued by banks in 2021, an increase of 2.56% over the position in 2020, the Bank of Ghana has disclosed in the 2021 Payment Systems Oversight Annual Report. International scheme cards at end-December 2021, was 3,647,285, representing 73.89% of the total issued debit cards. This compared with banks proprietary cards of 1,288,961, which...
The country’s inflation rate rose to a 19-year high in June at 29.8 per cent from 27.6 per cent in May, data from the Ghana Statistical Services (GSS) has revealed. Relative to May 2022, year-on-year inflation increased by 2.2 percentage points in June 2022 and a month-on-month inflation dropped by 0.9 percentage points over the same period, while month-on-month inflation...
The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) ended the first-half of 2021 with a negative year-to-date return of 24.13 per cent in dollar terms. This placed the country 12th out of the 15 top stock exchanges on the African continent. In cedi terms, the Accra Bourse lost 8.7 per cent return in the first six months of 2022. This position is two places better...
The Bank of Ghana will sell a total of $150 million to authorised dealers in the third quarter of this year in a Foreign Exchange Forex Auction. This will be far lower than the $350 million sold in the second quarter of 2022. Fifty million dollars each will be sold in July 2022, August 2022 and September 2022 respectively. In accordance with...
Indigenous lender, OmniBSIC Bank, has recapitalised to about GH¢516 million – above the regulatory requirement of GH¢400 million. The large capital gives comfort to customers and the general public, strengthens the bank’s buffers and its balance sheet as well as enhances its capacity to fund big-ticket transactions in an economy where businesses are recovering from the global twin challenges. The bank...
Total cash-in values of mobile money increased by 64.5% to ¢164.80 billion in 2021, from ¢100.17 billion in 2020. According to the Bank of Ghana’s Payment Systems Oversight Annual Report has revealed, this resulted in a 29.1% increase in average cash-in value to ¢264 in 2021, from ¢204 in 2020. Cash-in values constituted 12.1% of total transaction volumes in 2021, compared...
The Bank of Ghana has issued a total number of 176 products and services in the payment system ecosystem between 2016 and 2021. Remittance Services (55), Mobile Banking Services (40) and Card Issuance (20) constitute the larger number of payment products and services. Agency Banking (17) and Mobile Money Services (11) followed suit. The year 2017 recorded the highest number of...
