Banks’ credit to private sector continued to grow – Addison

Private sector credit continued to grow during the review period to 21.7 percent in August 2024, from 10.7 percent in August 2023, Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) Dr Ernest Addison has said.

In real terms, private sector credit recorded a growth of 1.1 percent, relative to a 21.0 percent contraction in 2023, he said.

Generally, Dr Addison said, the banking sector’s performance continued to improve, with assets growing at 38.7 percent at end-August 2024, compared to 19.6 percent in August 2023.

Both pre-tax and after-tax profits were higher in the first eight months of 2024 relative to the same period last year, he said.

On solvency, he stated that the Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) of the industry stood at 10.3 percent in August 2024, higher than the 7.5 percent recorded in August 2023.

With reliefs, CAR was 13.8 percent in August 2024, compared to 14.2 percent in August 2023.

CAR is a measure of how much capital a bank has available, reported as a percentage of a bank’s risk-weighted credit exposures.

“Liquidity and efficiency ratios also improved during the first eight months of the year, highlighting that broadly, key financial soundness indicators are improving in the banking sector and remaining positive,” Dr Addison said during the 120th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) press conference in Accra on Friday September 27.

Despite these improvements, he noted that the Non-Performing Loans (NPL) ratio was 24.3 percent in August 2024, up from 20 percent in August 2023, reflecting increased defaults from large borrowers and highlighting that elevated credit risk remains the primary concern for the sector’s outlook.

 

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