Banks have submitted a total of 113 bids at the latest forex forward rates auction held, according to a statement released by the Bank of Ghana.
Out of 113 bids submitted by banks, only 40 got accepted by the Bank of Ghana.
This exceeds last forex sales figure where 39 out of 108 bids submitted by banks got accepted.
Although the total number of bids submitted by banks were worth US$85.75 million and is more than last auction’sUS$80 million, but only US$25 million worth of the bids were accepted, in keeping with the stipulated target.
Thus, the bids cover ratio lingers around 3.43×, meaning that the worth of total bids submitted made up 3.43 times the stipulated target set by the Bank of Ghana and is higher than the previous ratio of 3.2 times.
The results also show that the 7-Day tenor had the highest number of bids submitted and has been so for all forex sales held in November.
According to the results presented by the Bank of Ghana, out of a total number of 113 bids submitted by banks, 55 were 7-Day Tenor.
This means that the 7-Day tenor made up nearly half of the total bids submitted bringing in approximately 49 percent of total bids submitted by the banks.
Detailing the number of bids banks submitted for each of the tenors, the report reveals that except for the 15-Day tenor which came close to the 7-Day tenor by recording 42 bids, all the other Tenor recorded low levels with 30-Day tenor having 8 bids, 45-Day recording very low levels of 6 bids submitted and 60-Day tenor recording extremely lower levels of 2 bids submitted. There were no bids submitted for the 75- Day tenor.
The report further asserted that even though the banks submitted up to 55 bids for the 7-day tenor, the Bank of Ghana accepted only 15 of the bids. In a similar vein, only a fraction of the bids submitted for the 15-Day tenor were accepted, with only 9 bids being accepted out of the total of 42 bids submitted. For the other tenors, all bids submitted by banks got accepted.
The Bank of Ghana intimated that for bids accepted, the 15-Day tenor logged in the highest minimum rate of 5.8155, and the 30-Day tenor had the highest maximum rate of 5.8500. For the range of rates for bids submitted, the 30-Day tenor recorded the highest reaching from 5.8035 and extending up to 5.8500. The remaining tenors also recorded a similar but marginally smaller range of rates. For example, the 45- day tenor had a range of rates for bids submitted being the same as the bids accepted extending from approximately 5.79 to 5.83.
It must also be noted that none of the bids were put down as null and void for the second time running. All bids submitted were deemed valid but they were not accepted because of the target amount set.
This is contrary to other auctions where invalid bids were submitted and according to the Bank of Ghana’s statement, they were rendered inadmissible because they “did not meet the forex forward auction guidelines”.
