The Head of Ghana Fixed Income Market of the GSE, Mr. Augustine Simons, has disclosed that domestic investors have taken over the bond market on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).

According to the Head of Ghana Fixed Income Market of the GSE, 78 per cent of the market is currently held by locals, while the remaining 22 per cent is held by foreigners.

Mr. Simons disclosed this at a workshop on the Bond Market and Ghana’s Fixed Income Market Operations in Accra. The workshop sought to enlighten market participants on the operations of the Bond Market and the Ghana Fixed Income Market.

Mr. Simons noted that when the Bond Market was created seven years ago, the market was dominated by foreigners, which held 70 per cent of the market.

Mr. Simons explained that the domination of the Bond Market hold good prospects for the country as it promotes financial inclusion, give the citizens the opportunity to contribute to the financial needs of the country, help the public to diversify their investment portfolios, as well as help ease pressure on the local currency.

GFIM Under the Ghana Alternative Market

Mr. Simons noted that the GFIM under the Ghana Alternative Market, was established alongside the main GSE bourse in 2015 by stakeholders in the financial market led by GSE, Bank of Ghana, Central Securities Depository Ghana Limited, Ghana Association of Bankers, the Ministry of Finance, Financial Market Association and Licensed Dealing Members of the GSE.

“GFIM is a secondary market for the trading of all fixed income securities and other securities to be determined from time to time such as bonds, notes and treasury bills.”
Augustine Simons

The Head of GFIM indicated that as of June this year, 2022, about 124 billion securities had been traded on the GFIM valued at more than GH¢125 billion.

“The GFIM recorded its highest trading in 2021 since it was established in 2015 and traded more than 208 billion securities valued at more than GH¢210 billion.”
Augustine Simons

Mr Simons added that as of June this year, 110,932,417,429 volume of government securities had been traded with an outstanding securities of 156,480,765,703 with a turnover of 70 per cent, while corporate bonds traded over the same period stood at 13, 139,994,558 with an outstanding securities of 28,019,228,956 with a turnover of 47 per cent.

The Head of GFIM, meanwhile, entreated corporate bodies to use the GFIM income market to raise capital to expand their businesses.

Ms Abena Amoah, the Deputy Managing Director of GSE, in her address, noted that the involvement of locals in the Fix Income Market is a good news to the economy.

“The objective of the GSE is to make the Accra bourse the preferred platform for the raising of long-term capital for companies and advance the development of the country.”
Ms Abena Amoah