The Tesah 2020 Baning Sector Performance Review has pegged the total assets of the banking sector atghC149.9 billion as at December 2020.
Per the data released, the year on year growth was 15.7 compared to that of 2019 that was 20.20%.
According to the report, the 2020 performance of lower growth was due to the adverse impact of Covid-19 on banking activities in 2020.
Net advances formed the larger proportion to the asset mix until 2018 where investment began to dominate.
The sharp growth in total investments in 2018 was largely due to special resolution bonds issued to Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG), the report said.
It said investment holdings increased in 2020 as banks move to less risky assets i.e GoG securities as a result of the pandemic-induced elevated credit risks.
Deposits remained the main source of funding for the industry, with its share increasing from 64.7% to 69.6% between 2019 and 2020.
”Although the investment holdings of banks increased in 2020, the structure of their investment portfolio remained largely the same The movement towards longer-dated instruments which led to an increase in the share of securities in total investments from 1.1% in 2018 to 1.8% in 2019 was reversed in 2020 to 0.4%. Banks’ appetite for GoG securities remain strong ass they reduce the size of their loan books in response to the risks presented by the pandemic on banking activities,” the report said.
Credit Growth
Credit growth slowed in 2020 from 225.7%in 2019 to 4.6%.
This was occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic and its resultant effect on business and loan repayments.
Private sector credit still constitutes the larger proportion of credit in the banking sector.
Its share increased to 91.1% in 2020 from 87.1% in 2019, while the share of the public sector decreased to 8.9% from 12.6% over the same period.
By: Rainbowradioonline.cocm
