The regulator, Bank of Ghana (BoG) is grappling with a staggering GHC 16.7 billion loss in 2025 through its Open Market Operations (OMO) for inflation management, but the story is very different on the side of the nation’s universal banks.
While the regulator, the Central Bank, reported a whopping loss, the regulated, the commercial banks, reported a huge profit, signaling that the banks appeared to be operating in a different reality altogether.
This sharp contrast has sparked an interesting debate: Did the Central Bank’s expensive fight against inflation inadvertently line the pockets of the very commercial banks it regulates?
The Great Interest Rate Divergence
Let’s take a look at the numbers. At the centre of this financial mystery lies a massive “rate gap” between the Government of Ghana’s Treasury Bills and the Bank of Ghana’s own bills used for Open Market Operations (OMO).
The OMO is used as a tool to drain excess liquidity, which drives inflation, from the system. In simple terms, the Central Bank, to achieve this primary objective, offers the BoG Bills at higher rates to attract the commercial banks to keep their excess money with the Central Bank.
A detailed analysis of the 2025 data by The High Street Journal reveals that for most of the year, commercial banks had a much more lucrative place to park their money than the government’s own debt instruments.
In early January 2025, the playing field was relatively level. A Government 91-day Treasury Bill offered a 28.19% interest rate, while the BoG’s 56-day bill stood at a similar 26.99%
However, as the year progressed, the two paths diverged dramatically.
A Tale of Two Rates
By May 2025, the government successfully pushed its borrowing costs down, with the 91-day Treasury Bill rate falling to 15.23%. Yet, during that same week, the Bank of Ghana continued to offer an eye-watering 27.99% on its 56-day bills.
The gap widened even further by August. While the Government was borrowing from the public at a mere 10.41% for 91 days, the BoG was still paying commercial banks 24.98% to take liquidity out of the market.
At some point in the year, the difference between the Government T-Bill rate and the BoG Bill was between 10 and 14 percentage points, offering lucrative investment for commercial banks.
The “Billion Cedi” Question
This massive interest rate premium, often exceeding 10 to 14 percentage points, raises a critical question for the Ghanaian public.
If the BoG was paying nearly double the market rate to commercial banks through its OMO operations to mop up excess liquidity, did those high interest payments directly contribute to the high profitability of the banks?
For a commercial bank, the choice was simple; invest in a government Treasury Bill at 11% or a BoG bill at 21%. By choosing the BoG bills, banks secured high-yield, low-risk income streams that likely bolstered their bottom lines.
Profits Amidst the “Loss”
The Bank of Ghana itself has confirmed that the scale of profitability among the commercial banks in 2025 is staggering. The BoG reveals that on the aggregate level, banks in Ghana recorded a whopping GHC15 billion in 2025 from GHC10. billion in 2024.
This represents about 43% increase in profit within a year. Interest-bearing assets, according to the individual financial statements of these banks, played a critical role in their profitability.
This is a signal that by staying invested in BoG 56-day bills, which maintained rates above 20% well into November 2025, banks were insulated from the falling yields seen in the general Treasury Bill market.
The Verdict: A Necessary Evil or a Policy Flaw?
The Bank of Ghana’s primary mandate is price stability. By keeping OMO rates high, they aimed to curb inflation by making it more attractive for banks to hold cash in BoG securities rather than lending it out.
But as the dust settles on 2025, the optics are not looking good for the Bank of Ghana. The Central Bank’s balance sheet took a multi-billion Cedi hit, while the commercial banking sector, the primary beneficiary of those high-interest OMO bills, thrived.
Whether this was a masterstroke in inflation control or an expensive subsidy to the banking sector remains a subject of intense national debate.
