Finance Minister Designate, Ken Ofori-Atta has indicated the government plan of making the National Investment Bank an industrial bank to provide lending to industry to facilitate economic growth. “NIB has been a difficult one because of its nature, but NIB for us will be that industrial bank; we have put some money into that, we need to resolve final execution...
Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr Ernest Addison has said Ghana has come a long way in fostering the financial inclusion agenda, with the Bank of Ghana at the forefront. He explained that the implementation of several policy measures geared towards banking the ‘unbanked’ and formalising the informal financial sector, constitutes integral parts of the overall strategy...
Finance Minister-designate Ken Ofori-Atta has intimated that the banking sector cleanup saved about 4.5 million customers of affected institutions from losing their deposits. He, however, revealed that a total of GH₵ 21billion was spent on the exercise that, he says, strengthened the banking sector. “We think we have done the best that the country deserves and the...
Players in the banking sector have been called upon not to pass on the additional five per cent tax imposed on their gross profits to their customers, particularly to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The Executive Director of the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), Mrs Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, who made the call in an interview with the Daily Graphic,...
GHANA’s GROSS International Reserves at the end of February 2021 was US$8,719.7 million, providing cover for 4.2 months of imports of goods and services. The reserve level compares with the end-December 2020 position of US$8,624.4 million, equivalent to 4.1 months of import cover. Dr. Ernest Addison, Governor of the central bank, who made this known, also said, cumulatively the Cedi appreciated...
Banks wrote off loans of a little above GH¢2.18 billion as bad debt last year, according to the Domestic Money Banks’ Income Statement of all the 23 banks released by the Bank of Ghana. This is an increment of 28.0% over 2019’s provision for bad debt of about GH¢1.70 billion. The increase in the bad debt is obviously as a result...
Banks in Ghana have reported impressive growth numbers in total assets, deposits and investments for 2020, defying the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to figures from the Bank of Ghana (BoG), total assets increased by 18.5 % on a year-on-year basis to GH¢152 billion, reflecting strong growth in investments in government securities by 45.9% to GH¢67.9 billion.The data,...
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has extended the moratorium on the issuing of new Fund Management licences for a further period of six months. This is pursuant to section 3(i)(m) and 208 of the Securities Industry Act, 2016 (Act 929). In a statement, it said “market operators, the investing, and the general public are hereby advised to visit the SEC’s...
The value of mobile money transactions has more than doubled in the last twelve months, according to the Bank of Ghana. The total value shot up by over 120 percent from February 2020 to February 2021. On a monthly basis, the value of transactions from January to February saw a minimal increase of about 1 percent. This was contained in the...
Managing Director for the Bank of Africa, Kofi Andah has asked for a review of the newly introduced financial sector clean-up levy of 5 percent. The levy was proposed in the recently read budget. According to the government, it is meant to help defray outstanding commitments in the sector following the clean-up which cost the government over GHS21 billion. Although the government...
