Ghana Fixed Income Market to take off June ending
The Ghana Stock Exchange and other stakeholders are to introduce the Ghana Fixed Income Market (GFIM) to provide an efficient secondary market for fixed income and similar securities.
Mr Ekow Afedzie, Deputy Managing Director of the GSE who spoke to the GNA in Accra, said the objective of the GFIM’s was to provide a fair, orderly, transparent and efficient market for all fixed income and similar securities.
It is also to bring secondary trading activities in fixed income securities in Ghana to international best practice standards.
Mr Afedzie said the GFIM barring any technical hitches is expected to go live for the trading of fixed income securities at the end of June this year.
He said the principal functions of GFIM would be to approve the admission of all fixed income securities, including government and corporate and other similar securities, and to provide a market for the secondary trading of such securities.
He said all government of Ghana treasury bills, notes and bonds and Bank of Ghana money market instruments were to be admitted and traded on the GFIM.
“In addition, quasi-Government of Ghana institutions’ money market instruments, notes and bonds; corporate notes and bonds; municipal and/or metropolitan bonds; supra-national bonds; repos; and other fixed income or money market securities may be admitted and traded on the GFIM,” he said.
Mr Afedzie explained that trading on the GFIM would be limited to an entity that was licensed by the Securities and Exchange Commission to deal in securities.
This, he said, would be in addition to being authorised by the Bank of Ghana as a primary dealer (PD) or licensed by the Bank of Ghana as a bank, or licensed by the Ghana Stock Exchange as a Licensed Dealing Member (LDM).
He said a number of key stakeholders in the country’s financial market had collaborated to set up the Ghana Fixed Income Market (GFIM).
The stakeholders include the Bank of Ghana, the Ghana Stock Exchange, and the Central Securities Depository Ghana Ltd (CSD).
Others are the Ghana Association of Bankers (GAB), ACI Ghana (Association of Bank Dealers), and Licensed Dealing Members (LDMs) of the Ghana Stock Exchange.
Mr Afedzie said secondary trading of securities on the GFIM would be by way of an electronic trading and market surveillance system provided by Bloomberg L. P., and that cash settlement of trades would be done through the Bank of Ghana while securities settlement would be done at the CSD.
“The Bank of Ghana, for monetary policy purposes, shall be permitted to deal in Government of Ghana and Bank of Ghana securities listed on the GFIM,” he said.
The GFIM, he said, would be governed by an eleven-member governing committee to be chaired by the first deputy governor of the Bank of Ghana.
“There will be representatives from GSE, CSD, GAB, ACI Ghana, the Ghana Securities Industry Association, the Bank of Ghana and the Debt Management Division of the Ministry of Finance on the committee,” he said.