Bank of Ghana has reported that banks operating in Ghana wrote off GH¢1.23 billion in the first-half of 2026.

This was contained in the Bank of Ghana’s July 2026 Monetary Policy Report, which included highlights of the Domestic Money Banks’ Income Statement.

According to the BoG, this marks a 38% year-on-year increase from the GH¢893.0 million recorded in the same period last year as loan losses and depreciation.

Also, the report indicated that asset quality risks, thus the chances of borrowers paying back their loans, remained high in the banking sector in June 2026, however improvements in key asset quality indicators.

The industry’s non-performing loan (NPL) ratio declined to 16.1% in June 2026 from 23.1% in June 2025.

Similarly, the NPL ratio, adjusted for the fully provisioned loan loss category, improved to 4.6% from 8.5% over the same period.

In addition, banks recorded a 3.9% year-on-year decrease in the stock of non-performing loans, from GH¢20.7 billion in 2025 to GH¢19.9 billion in June 2026.

These developments point to an improvement in credit risk conditions, although asset quality vulnerabilities remain a concern.

The private sector continued to account for the majority of non-performing loans (NPLs) in the banking sector, reflecting its dominance in banks’ lending activities.

Its share of total NPLs increased from 96.4% in June 2025 to 98.0% in June 2026.

Meanwhile, the public sector’s share of NPLs fell from 3.6% to 2.0% over the same period.

NPLs in 2025

Last year, BoG reported that banks were still grappling with customers not repaying loans on time, or in some cases defaulting altogether, with a recent report from the Bank of Ghana (BoG) affirming that the challenge persists.

This was deduced after the central bank published its Domestic Money Banks (DMBs) Income Statement, i.e., the annual financial report that the BoG publishes to show how Ghana’s commercial banks performed over the year.

According to the statement, Banks in Ghana wrote off GH¢1.64 billion in 2025, marking a reduction of 57.1% in 2024.

Given the history of the banking sector’s Non-Performing Loans (NPL), the banks made a provision of GH¢3.82 billion as bad debt in 2024. The total provision was made for loan losses, depreciation & others.

According to the January 2026 Banking Developments Report, the asset quality risks of banks remained elevated in December 2025, although the industry’s Non-Performing Loans (NPL) ratio declined to 18.9% in December 2025, from 21.8% in December 2024.

Similarly, the NPL ratio adjusted for the fully provisioned loan loss category declined from 8.5% to 5.0% during the same comparative period.

The NPL stock, however, increased by 0.8% to GH¢21.0 billion in December 2025 compared with a growth of 31.4% recorded in December 2024.

A decomposition of the NPLs showed that the private sector emerged as the leading contributor, due to its dominant share of total credit. The statement also noted that the proportion of NPLs attributable to the private sector increased to 97.5% in December 2025, from 96.2% in December 2024, marking a 1.35 % while that of the public sector declined to 2.5%, from 3.8% a year earlier.

Amid the private sector’s poor performance in paying back its loans, the Bank of Ghana (BoG), in its statement, indicated that there has been an improvement in the percentage of bad loans in the banking industry year-on-year.

Accordingly, the NPL ratios in the construction and agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors increased from 29.8% and 38.0% to 30.7% and 46.3%, respectively. All other sectors improved asset quality during the review period.

Meanwhile, in August 2025, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) announced a ‘name and shame’ approach to promote responsible borrowing among wilful loan defaulters in a new directive. The Bank of Ghana announced this in a formal directive issued to all regulated financial institutions on August 14.

In the new directive, the Bank of Ghana instructed all regulated financial institutions to publish the names of individuals who deliberately refuse to repay loans (wilful loan defaulters), despite having the means, twice a year in national newspapers and on their websites.