Ghana’s central bank said it plans to fire some primary dealers of the nation’s bonds for failing to take their share of securities at weekly auctions, pressuring other traders to pick up the slack.
“Primary dealers are supposed to buy 7 percent of the amount of bills and notes offered,” Adams Nyinaku, head of treasury at the Accra-based Bank of Ghana, said by phone today. “Our quarterly appraisal shows some of them are under- performing. We may drop some of the current primary dealers and add those on the waiting list.”
When a brokerage doesn’t take its full proportion of bonds, other dealers are compelled to step in and buy extra, for which the central bank pays a fee. Traders purchase 91- and 182-day bills and one- and two-year notes at auctions held every Friday, either for themselves or customers.
The Bank of Ghana is planning regulations from next year aimed at deepening the secondary bond market, Nyinaku said.
“We need rules regarding issues such as pricing and underwriting,” he said. “The minimum capital requirement for banks is 60 million cedis ($31.7 million) but we want primary dealers to reserve part of their portfolio for secondary trading.”
While foreign investors are allowed to directly buy Ghana debt with a duration of more than three years, they can only purchase shorter-dated notes on the secondary market.
There are times when investors want to redeem debt before maturity and the central bank wants lenders “to be able to settle among themselves and not fall on the central bank for lack of liquidity,” Nyinaku said.
Barclays Plc, Standard Bank Group Ltd., Standard Chartered Plc (SCB), Ghana Commercial Bank Ltd. (GCB), Ecobank Ghana Ltd. (EBG), SG-SSB Ltd. (SGSSB), Agricultural Development Bank of Ghana and Access Bank Plc (ACCESS) are currently primary dealers. The rest are Cal Bank Ltd. (CAL), United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), Merchant Bank Ltd., Fidelity Bank of Ghana, Bank of Africa Ghana, ARB Apex Bank Ltd. and the state- pension fund, Social Security and National Insurance Trust.
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Source: Bloomberg News Ghana
