With loans to households and businesses growing at nearly three times last year’s pace, the central bank wants tighter checks before the good news turns into bad debt.
The Bank of Ghana (BoG), the country's central bank, is preparing a new Credit Risk Management Directive for banks, following a sharp rebound in lending to the private sector.
Governor Dr Johnson Asiama announced the plan at a meeting with the heads of banks, as reported by MyJoyOnline. He said credit to the private sector, which covers loans to businesses and individuals rather than government, grew by 35.5% in August 2026. In the same month last year, growth was 13.3%.
Stripping out the effect of inflation, real credit growth stood at 29%, compared with just 1.7% a year earlier. That gap shows how much of last year's lending growth was being swallowed by rising prices.
Why lending picked up
Dr Asiama pointed to cheaper borrowing as a major driver. The average lending rate fell to 15.9% in August 2026, down from 24.2% twelve months before, a drop of more than eight percentage points.
He also credited banks easing their credit stance, meaning they have become more willing to approve loans, alongside a genuine recovery in demand from borrowers.
For small businesses and traders who spent the past few years locked out of affordable credit, that is a meaningful shift.
The central bank's worry
Fast lending growth carries a familiar risk: standards slip when banks chase volume, and the bad loans show up later.
Dr Asiama warned banks not to let that happen. "As private sector credit expands rapidly, this growth must be supported by sound underwriting standards and effective risk management frameworks," he said.
Underwriting refers to how carefully a bank assesses whether a borrower can actually repay before releasing money.
The planned directive will set rules across the full life of a loan: how it is originated, how it is administered, how it is monitored and measured, and how recovery is handled when a borrower defaults.
It is designed to work alongside the Non-Performing Loans notice the BoG issued last year. Non-performing loans, or NPLs, are loans where repayments have fallen seriously behind.
Dr Asiama said the banking sector's NPL ratio has come down significantly, but remains high compared with the thresholds regulators are comfortable with. The central bank expects banks to keep improving their credit risk systems and to comply fully with the existing NPL guidelines.
What it means
For borrowers in Ghana, the immediate picture is positive: loans are cheaper and easier to get than they were a year ago. The directive may, however, mean more paperwork and tighter scrutiny on applications.
For Ghanaians abroad watching the banking sector, the move signals that the BoG is trying to get ahead of a credit cycle rather than clean up after it. The source report did not give a date for when the directive takes effect.
