Fidelity Bank has informed its customers of its agreements with its partner banks to aid in seamless completion of foreign exchange transactions on its behalf.

This comes after the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has suspended its forex licence as well as that of First National Bank Ghana Limited for violating the rules of the Ghana Interbank Forex Market.

The two banks will not be able to engage in any forex transactions from 29th June 2023 to 28th July 2023, according to a press statement signed by Sandra Thompson, the Secretary of the BoG.

They have also been fined 1000 penalty points each, for breaching sections 3.4, 3.5, and 3.9 of the Ghana Interbank Forex Market Conduct.

Fidelity Bank Ghana statement on the temporary suspension of our FX license by the Bank of Ghana. pic.twitter.com/NoJFrgBeFj— Fidelity Bank Ghana (@fidelitybankgh) June 29, 2023

Section 3.4 indicates that LFXDs are required to update indicative quotes for buying and selling US dollars at regular intervals, on the Reuters and Bloomberg information systems. Indicative quotes shall be updated at intervals of no more than 30 minutes. (This will show the price at which a market-maker is prepared to buy and sell at the minimum traded lots).

Trade Reporting on Platforms captured in 3.5 requires that all interbank FX trades must be booked on the Reuters platform and appropriately confirmed within five (5) minutes after the trade is concluded. These trades must also be reported in the daily FX report submitted to the Bank of Ghana.

Section 3.9 on the other hand, mandates the Bank of Ghana to publish the Ghana Cedi reference rate with respect to the US dollar on the Bank of Ghana website by 16:30 hours GMT daily except on holidays.

"The reference rate shall be computed using the weighted average exchange rate of all eligible US dollar transactions that are reported to the Bank of Ghana by the cut-off time of 15:30 hours GMT. The Bid and Offer reference rates are calculated by taking a +/- 0.05% bid/ask spread around the weighted average exchange rate. The reference rate will also be published on Reuters and Bloomberg by 16.30 hours GMT," it adds.

Following this, Fidelity Bank has apologised to its customers and assured that "we are actively engaging the Bank of Ghana to resolve the issue as soon as possible."

Source: The Independent Ghana | Andy Ogbarmey-Tettey