The Bank of Ghana has revised the sanctioning regime in respect of issuance of dud cheques for strict compliance by banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions (SDIs). The BoG in statement issued today, October 14, 2025 said it had to take the action due to the rising number of dud cheques, despite warnings issued by the central bank.

"The Bank of Ghana has observed with grave concern the high issuance of dud cheques by some customers of banks and SDIs. This development has consequential effects on the acceptance of cheques for transactions", the BoG warned.

The central bank said a bank or SDI is now obliged to levy an account holder who issues a dud cheque for the first time 10% of the cheque’s face value and issue a Warning Notification to the affected customer on the consequences of repeating the offence.

In addition, the bank or SDI shall report the offence to the credit reference bureaus and the Bank of Ghana.

“The bank or SDI shall place the customer under surveillance for a minimum period of one year. The warning should be documented and may be in the form of a Short Message Service (SMS), an email or any other established means of communication between the bank or SDI and that customer. The notification shall also indicate further sanctions that will be applied in the event of subsequent breaches”, the BoG said.

Where a customer issues a dud cheque for the second time within one year of the first offence, the drawee bank or SDI is required to impose a levy of 15% of the cheque’s face value and issue another Warning Notification to the customer on the consequences of repeating the offence.

The drawee bank or SDI shall report the offence to the credit reference bureaus and the Bank of Ghana.

“Where a customer issues a dud cheque on a third occasion within one year of the first offence, the drawee bank or SDI shall impose a levy of 20% of the cheque’s face value. The drawee bank or SDI shall report the offence to the credit reference bureaus and the Bank of Ghana”, it said.

According to the Bank of Ghana, it shall ban such a customer from issuing cheques within the country for a minimum period of three years.

The customer may, however, be permitted to receive cheques and funds into the affected account and perform other electronic transactions on the account. In addition, the Bank of Ghana shall ban such a customer from accessing new credit facilities from the banking system for one year and notify all banks and SDIs of the ban.

Upon receipt of the notification of the ban by the Bank of Ghana, the drawee bank or SDI shall notify the customer within five working days of the ban, recall all unused cheque books and shall not issue new cheque books to the affected customer until the sanctions are lifted. The Bank of Ghana may publish the list of the third time offenders.

Where a customer fails to return the unused cheque books within a period of ten days from the notification date, the customer shall be reported to the Bank of Ghana. The Bank of Ghana may ban such a customer from operating any current account. In addition, the customer shall be added to the Directory of High-Risk Cheque Issuers to be created by the Central Bank, which shall serve as a reference point for the Bank of Ghana and the banking industry.