A banking consultant, Dr Richmond Atuahene, has expressed confidence in the Bank of Ghana's ability to recover from the loss it incurred in the 2024 financial year.

According to him, the bank could return to profitability in the next two years due to the policies and measures it is putting in place.

The Central Bank reported an operating loss of GH¢9.49 billion for the 2024 financial year.

Dr Atuahene noted that the bank's current structure makes it vulnerable to recording losses.

“The losses of the Open Market Operations (OMO), I do understand. Until the Bank of Ghana is well structured, they will always make losses, more so because they don’t have bonds, and they’ve now been told to do zero financing, and so they are not going to recover next year. It will take at least two or three years before they come back to profit,” he was quoted by citinewsroom.com.

The BoG's total operating income for 2024 of GH¢9.40 billion was offset by total operating expenses of GH¢18.89 billion, which led to a deficit.

The losses were caused by different factors, including GH¢8.60 billion spent to manage excess liquidity and support monetary tightening in the form of open market operations.

Other losses like FX revaluation and exchange losses amounted to GH¢3.49 billion, which include GH¢1.82 billion linked to the government’s Gold-for-Oil Programme.

The bank reported a GH¢4.02 billion improvement in its equity position, which closed the year at a negative GH¢61.32 billion, despite the losses.

SSD/AE