The Bank of Ghana has been recognised by the Central Banking Awards as the Central Bank of the Year following measures it pursued in a bid to ensure a strong financial sector via a raft of reforms implemented over the past two years.
The awards, which will be held on March 19, 2020, in Brussels, Belgium, said the bank has an impressive record of achievement, but the most notable is its reform of a seriously under-capitalized and poorly managed banking sector.
By winning the Central Bank of the Year award, the Bank of Ghana takes over from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) which was last year’s overall winner.
Standout central bank
“The central bank has dealt with this complex set of risks, which could have caused serious damage to the country’s economy,” the Central Banking Awards said in a post on its website.
According to the post, while the standout feature for the Bank of Ghana during the last three years has been reforming the country’s banking sector, its performance in other fields has also impressed some outside observers.
It noted that Dr. Addison’s predecessors faced the problem that the previous Ghanaian government had been resorting to monetary financing, while adding that international donors helped to push the government away from this.
“Under Addison’s predecessor but one, Henry Kofi Wampah, the Bank of Ghana had hiked policy rates in order to deal with rapidly rising inflation. Tighter monetary policy, almost certainly reinforced by the reforms of the government’s fiscal approach, meant that the most recent bout of runaway annual inflation peaked in 2016,” the post stated.
The Central Banking Awards, now in their seventh year, recognizes outstanding performances from across the community, by both central banks and the market practitioners who support them.