Bank of Ghana outlines monetary policy, supervision and payments priorities to support Ghana’s 24-hour economy and warns on rising NPLs

The Bank of Ghana published a speech by Governor Dr. Johnson P. Asiama, delivered on his behalf at a roundtable on financing Ghana’s “24-hour policy”, setting out how the central bank and the banking sector can support expanded round-the-clock economic activity. The remarks link the policy’s financing needs to maintaining macroeconomic stability and a safe, well-supervised banking system, while flagging concern about increasing non-performing loans (NPLs) and pointing firms to the Bank’s recent notice on “Regulatory Measures to reduce Non-Performing Loans”. The speech frames support around the Bank’s monetary policy tools to control inflation and, in a stable price environment, enable lower interest rates and improved access to credit, alongside the use of reserve requirements and open market operations to influence liquidity and lending conditions. It also emphasises prudential supervision and enforcement of corporate governance and risk management requirements to limit systemic risk, and highlights the role of payments infrastructure in enabling continuous commerce, including safe, timely transactions through ATMs and online banking platforms. On longer-term financing, the remarks note that banks and specialised deposit-taking institutions tend to focus on short-term commercial funding, pointing to Development Bank Ghana as a key institution for long-term lending and stating that the Bank of Ghana is positioned to implement appropriate regulatory frameworks for development finance institutions under the Development Finance Institutions Act, 2020 (Act 1032). The speech also references the Ghana Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (GIRSAL), including the Bank’s 2022 approval for GIRSAL’s Agricultural Credit Risk Guarantee to be accepted as collateral for lending to agribusinesses.