- Bank of Ghana suspends GTB, First Bank’s forex licences
The bullish trend continued on Tuesday as the local bourse records a 0.35 percent uptick, closing at 99,190.46 points.
Despite a higher number of losers (37) than gainers (10), the market capitalization of listed equities climbs by 35 basis points to N56.08 trillion.
Top performers for the day included TRANSCORP (+10.00%), TRANSPOWER (+10.00%), FBNH (+9.88%), TIP (+9.77%), and JULI (+9.71%), experiencing significant price upticks.
Trading activity on the Exchange remained positive as the NGX trading value spiked by 59.55 percent to N31.79 billion, with TRANSPOWER accounting for 80 percent of the traded value.
Total deals increased by 2.11 percent, totaling 10,976 trades, while traded volume dropped by 7.33 percent to 398.13 million units.
Performance across the sub-sectors exhibited a diverse pattern.
While the Banking and Industrial indexes saw increases of 1.14 percent and 0.01 percent respectively, the Insurance and Consumer Goods indices experienced declines of 3.23 percent and 0.84 percent respectively. Conversely, the Oil/Gas sector remained stable. Among individual stocks, NASCON,
INTBREW, MAYBAKER, THOMASWY, and CILEASING were the top five decliners, with share price decreases of -10.00 percent, -10.00 percent, -9.93 percent, -9.85 percent, and -9.84 percent respectively.
Additionally, at the close of the trading session, TRANSPOWER emerged as the most actively traded security, with 87.49 million units valued at N25.41 billion, transacted in 1,007.
Turning to the foreign exchange market, the naira depreciated by 4.45 percent to close at N1, 602.43 per dollar in the official market. In the parallel market, Naira closed at N1, 585 against the US dollar.
In the money market, the Overnight NIBOR rose by 128bps to close at 28.58 percent, reflecting liquidity squeeze in the system.
Consequently, key money market rates, including the open repo rate and overnight lending rate increased by 1.33 percent and 1.55 percent, to 28.21 percent and 29.04 percent, respectively.
Within the NITTY space, rates experienced upward shifts for most maturity gauges, with increases of 33 basis points, 29 basis points, and 4 basis points for the 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month periods.
However, the average secondary market yield for Nigerian Treasury Bills remained unchanged at 16.57 percent, despite positive movement across the yield curve.
In the secondary market for FGN bonds, trading activity was slightly bearish, leading to a mild increase in the average yield by 6bps to 17.31 percent.
In the sovereign Eurobonds market, despite negative movement observed across the yield curve, the average yield stayed muted at 9.69 percent.
Bank of Ghana suspends GTB, First Bank’s forex licences
Meanwhile, the Bank of Ghana has suspended the Foreign Exchange Trading Licences of two Nigerian-owned banks, Guaranty Trust Bank Ghana Limited and FBNBank Ghana Limited.
The suspension takes effect from March 18, 2024, for one month.
The suspension was announced in a statement, on Monday, by the Ghanaian apex bank.
The suspension comes in response to various breaches of foreign exchange market regulations which include incidents of fraudulent documentation within their foreign exchange operations.
“Bank of Ghana has suspended the Foreign Exchange Trading Licences of Guaranty Trust Bank Ghana Limited (GTB) and FBNBank Ghana Limited (FBN), effective 18th March 2024, for a period of one month, in accordance with Section 11 (2) of the Foreign Exchange Act 2006, (Act 723).
“This is as a result of various breaches of the foreign exchange market regulations, including fraudulent documentation in their foreign exchange operations which have come to the attention of the Bank of Ghana.
“The licence will be restored at the end of the one-month suspension period once the Bank of Ghana is satisfied that they have put in place effective controls to ensure strict adherence to regulations to the foreign exchange market.” the statement read in part.
The Ghanaian apex bank said the development “is in strict accordance with Section 11 (2) of the Foreign Exchange Act 2006, (Act 723), underscoring the Bank of Ghana’s commitment to maintaining the integrity and stability of the foreign exchange market.
“The suspension serves as a direct consequence of the banks’ failure to comply with established regulations, highlighting the central bank’s zero-tolerance policy towards regulatory non-compliance,” the bank said.
