The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has announced guidelines to govern the conduct of Foreign Exchange (FX) Spot Interventions.

According to the Central Bank, the FX interventions will follow a structured discretion-under constraint approach, ensuring that interventions do not target a specific exchange rate level but rather address market failures.

It explained that the rule-based approach will allow the exchange rate to be determined by market forces while limiting excess short-term volatility – but not eliminating it.

“FX spot interventions constitute one of the key objectives of the Bank’s broader FX operations framework, alongside reserve accumulation and FX intermediation”, it explained.

Rules for Conduct of Spot FX Intervention Auctions

The BoG said it shall announce an FX intervention auction when conditions fall within the defined intervention region.

“The FX intervention shall be announced either on the same day or one day in advance, depending on the timing of the decision. The announcement shall be published via LSEG Workspace (Refinitiv) Auctions platform and Refinitiv FXT. The announcement shall indicate the FX intervention volume target and other relevant information”, it said.

In terms of eligibility, the participation in the FX intervention auction is restricted to authorised licensed FX dealing banks.

The quotation of rates for bids placed in the auction shall indicate the equivalent value in the national currency (Ghana Cedi/ GHS), expressed against one unit of the USD quoted up to 4 decimal places.

Bidding Process

Authorised banks shall submit their bids through the LSEG Workspace (Refinitiv) Auctions platform.

In the event of a system-wide failure as announced by the Bank of Ghana, banks will submit their bids via the designated email address, using the approved format prescribed by the Central Bank.

Each bank may submit up to three bids, indicating the desired amount and the exchange rate in accordance with the quotation convention.

The minimum bid size is US$500,000 and in multiples of US$250,000 and expressed in numbers.