By Issah Olegor
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has disclosed that only two commercial banks—Universal Merchant Bank (UMB) and Prudential Bank Ghana—remained undercapitalised as of December 2025, signalling both progress and lingering vulnerabilities in the post-crisis banking sector reforms.
Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Johnson Asiama, made the disclosure while outlining the state of the financial sector, noting that while most banks have met regulatory capital thresholds, targeted interventions are now being pursued to stabilise the remaining weak institutions and prevent systemic risks.
According to the Governor, recapitalisation efforts at UMB have been formally extended to end-March 2026.
This extension is to allow key institutional shareholders, including the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) and the State Insurance Company (SIC), to fulfil their proposed capital injection commitments.
The Bank of Ghana, he explained, is currently in active discussions with SSNIT, SIC, and the Ghana Amalgamated Trust to finalise a sustainable recapitalisation structure that secures UMB’s long-term stability.
In the case of Prudential Bank Limited, Dr. Asiama revealed that government has opted for a direct intervention strategy.
Under the Overarching Restructuring Strategy and Plan jointly developed by the Government of Ghana, the Bank of Ghana, and Prudential Bank, the state has committed to closing the bank’s capital gap to restore compliance with regulatory requirements and safeguard depositor funds.
These developments form part of Ghana’s broader financial sector stabilisation agenda, which began with the banking sector clean-up reforms in 2017–2019 following widespread undercapitalisation, poor governance, and insolvency risks across several financial institutions.
Those reforms led to bank consolidations, licence withdrawals, recapitalisation programmes, and the strengthening of regulatory supervision under the BoG.
Since then, capital adequacy, liquidity levels, and governance standards across the banking industry have generally improved, supported by tighter supervision, higher minimum capital requirements, and macroeconomic stabilisation policies under Ghana’s IMF-supported programme.
Dr. Asiama also clarified the state’s ownership structure in the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), stating that the Government of Ghana remains the majority shareholder with 88.16 percent of shares, while the Bank of Ghana holds 9.66 percent.
This disclosure reinforces the government’s continued strategic role in systemically important banks within the financial sector.
