The Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) has engaged commercial banks on a new framework for spot foreign exchange sales and intermediation designed to provide authorised banks with predictable and transparent access to US dollars.

The Spot FX and Intermediation Framework will operate through the GoldBod GoFX platform, with spot dollar sales ordinarily conducted twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Participating banks will submit their requests within designated sales windows, with allocations made on a pro-rata basis where demand exceeds the available foreign exchange.

The framework requires transactions to be settled on the same day, with the US dollar leg completed by 3:00 p.m. and the Ghana cedi leg by 4:00 p.m.

Participating banks will also be required to confirm that their requests are backed by genuine unmet FX demand or evidence of a short position, in line with Bank of Ghana regulations and directives.

GoldBod says the arrangement is intended to strengthen transparency, accountability and efficiency in the foreign exchange market while discouraging speculative demand.

The GoFX platform will electronically process submissions and allocations and maintain time stamps, transaction histories and audit trails to support post-trade verification.

The framework will operate under the regulatory oversight of the Bank of Ghana, which will have real-time access to the GoFX platform, while GoldBod will submit transaction reports to the central bank after each sale.

The programme was discussed with key industry stakeholders at a conference convened by GoldBod at its head office ahead of the rollout and will be implemented in collaboration with the Bank of Ghana under the oversight of the Ministry of Finance.