Stanbic Bank led the market share of banks that invested heavily on the Ghana Stock Exchange Fixed Income Market in the month of August, as it controlled 22.58% of the total value of securities traded, according to the Ghana Fixed Income Market Status Report for the month of August.

It was followed by Standard Chartered Bank which had a market share of about 14.48%.

Stanbic and Stanchart together bought or invested almost ¢5 billion of their deposits in the government of Ghana securities during the month of August 2021. Whilst Stanbic Bank invested ¢3.02 billion, Stanchart traded about ¢1.93 billion on the Ghana Fixed Income Market.

The investments is expected to accrue interest income from the risk free instruments to grow their bottom line.

Both banks had remained cautions by being prudent in lending, particularly during this Covid-19 period in order not to incur high non-performing loans, going forward.

GCB Bank followed in the 3rd position controlling about 11.51% of the debt market, investing about ¢1.54 billion on the Ghana Stock Exchange Fixed Income Market.

Access (9.09%), Ecobank (7.20%), Fidelity (7.04%), GT Bank (5.08%) followed in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th positions respectively.

Together, they controlled 28.41% of the share of the debt market, investing about ¢3.7 billion of their funds on the Ghana Fixed Income Market.

With the exception of Omni BSIC that did not invest on the Ghana Fixed Income Market, all the remaining 22 banks bought government securities.

According to the Bank of Ghana, banks investments in bills, securities and equity remained the largest component of total assets as of the end of June this year.

The share of banks investments in total assets therefore increased to 46.5%, from 42.3%, reflecting the 28.8% year-on-year growth in investments in June 2021.

This is relative to the sluggish growth in credits.