New loans advanced by banks in the first six months of 2022 amounted to ¢24.6 billion, an increase of 54.0% over new advances recorded in the same comparative period last year (growth of 1.0%).

According to the Banking Sector Development Report by the Bank of Ghana, the year-on-year increase in gross loans and advances recorded in June 2022 reflected mainly developments in the first half of this year.

The stock of gross loans and advances increased by 33.3% (year-on-year) to ¢63.4 billion at end-June 2022, compared to a growth of 5.7% in June 2021.

The stronger growth in gross loans and advances in June 2022, the report said, is reflected in both private and public sector credit.

Private sector credit grew by 33.7% to ¢57.2 billion in June 2022, compared with a growth of 6.8% in the previous year.

Accordingly, the private sector share of total credit increased marginally to 90.2% in June 2022, from 89.9% in June 2021.

Public sector credit also recorded a growth of 29.3% to ¢6.2 billion, compared to a contraction of 2.8% in the previous year.

The share of public sector credit, however, declined marginally from 10.1% to 9.8 percent on account of the lower annual growth rate in public sector credit relative to the growth in private sector credit in June 2022.

Services sector constituted largest share of credit in first-half of 2022

The services sector continued to have the largest share of credit of 34.1% as of June 2022.

It was followed by the commerce and finance as well as construction sectors with relative shares of 21.3% and 10.2%, respectively.

According to the Banking Sector Report, these top three sectors together accounted for 65.6% of total credit in June 2022, compared with 60.3% in June 2021.

The other economic sectors accounted for the remaining 34.4% in various proportions in June 2022.

However, the mining and quarrying sector remained the lowest recipient of industry credit with a share of 2.1% at end-June 2022, close to the 2.2% share in the prior year.