The Bank of Ghana (BoG) on Wednesday called on the Police Service to help it to identify hidden and unlicensed financial institutions that might be operating secretly and possibly taking advantage of vulnerable customers. Mrs Elsie Addo Awadzi, the Second Deputy Governor of the BoG, who made the call, said although the BoG embarked on a clean-up of the Financial...
Absa Group Ltd, one of the largest diversified financial service providers in Africa, has concluded an agreement with the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), a member of the World Bank Group, helping Absa expand financing across seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In terms of the agreement, MIGA will issue guarantees of $497 million to Absa. The...
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has raised the monthly sale of foreign currencies (FX) by 60 per cent in the first quarter of this year to help contain the increased demand for those currencies within that period of the year. The bank is hopeful that the front-loading of the auctions in between January and March this year will help narrow...
It is emerging that banks are still accruing a large percentage of their income from their investments in various securities. The latest banking sector report released by the Bank of Ghana disclosed that this component of income increased to 44.8 percent in October 2019 from 42.9 percent in October 2018. The Bank of Ghana’s industry report showed that income from investments...
Mr Kojo Mattah, the Managing Director (MD) of the ARB Apex Bank Limited, said the Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) sub-sector cannot afford to fail the nation’s rural economy. That, he said, was because the 144 RCBs with more than 850 branch locations and agencies were the livewire of the rural economy. Mr Mattah said this in an address read on...
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued guidelines for the registration of auditors of public companies and for SEC licences as well as the registration of accountants reporting for public companies. The move is part of efforts to sanitise the securities and investment industry, which, in recent times, have been hit by liquidity challenges and investment losses largely due...
The year-on-year inflation rate for December fell slightly to 7.9 per cent, lower by 0.3 percentage points from 8.2 per cent recorded in November 2019. Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, the Government Statistician, who announced this in Accra yesterday said the inflation rate was predominantly driven by food, transportation and housing. “Due to its relative importance in consumption, food is still the...
The Bank of Ghana has been challenged to enforce its regulations without fear or favour in 2020 and beyond to ensure the sector continues on its current path of growth. According to Banking Consultant, Dr. Richmond Atuahene, this will ensure that Ghana’s banking sector becomes one of the best in the West African Sub-region. The clean up of the country’s financial...
The Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) has announced that it has received approval to issue in excess of 39 million ordinary shares to the Ghana Amalgamated Trust (GAT) to raise GH¢127 million in order to help meet its minimum capital requirement. This is in fulfillment of ADB’s recapitalization of four hundred million cedis required of commercial banks by the Bank of...
The total stock of Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) continues to increase as it hit GH¢7.19 billion in October 2019 from GH¢7.14 billion in October 2018. Despite this increase in the nominal numbers, the central bank believes that higher growth in total loans contributed to a lower NPL ratio of 17.3 per cent from 20.1 for the same comparative period in 2018 The...
