GCB Bank Profit Jumps 46% as Lending Doubles

Roger A. Agana
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GCB Bank Profit Jumps 46% as Lending Doubles

GCB Bank PLC’s group profit after tax rose 46% to GHS1.22 billion in the six months to June 30, as the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE)-listed lender’s loan book more than doubled, unaudited half-year results published this week show.

Net loans and advances to customers climbed to GHS21.5 billion from GHS10.5 billion a year earlier, while customer deposits rose 49% to GHS51.2 billion. Total assets grew 48% to GHS67.8 billion, and net interest income rose 17% to GHS2.35 billion. Earnings per share increased to GHS11.08 for the group, up from GHS6.33 in the same period last year.

The expansion tracks a broader credit rebound across Ghana’s banking sector. The Bank of Ghana reported private-sector credit growth of 41.2% in June 2026, a rate consistent with the pace at which GCB grew its own lending book over the same period, as average lending rates eased to 15.6% and the sector’s non-performing loan ratio improved industry-wide.

At GCB itself, asset quality improved sharply: the non-performing loan ratio fell to 4.7% from 13.8% a year earlier, though a narrower measure excluding fully provisioned loans rose slightly to 2.4% from 1.3%. That improvement came alongside a thinner capital buffer. The bank’s capital adequacy ratio fell to 15.9% from 20.0%, its common equity tier 1 (CET1) ratio dropped to 13.9% from 17.0%, and its liquidity ratio eased to 69.8% from 76.3%, reflecting the faster pace of balance-sheet growth relative to capital and liquid assets.

Shareholders’ equity rose to GHS7.24 billion from GHS5.21 billion, aided by a GHS265 million dividend payment during the period; the bank paid no dividend in the comparable half of 2025. The filing also discloses one regulatory sanction totalling GHS486,000 during the first half of 2026, up from none in the same period last year; the filing does not specify the nature of the breach.

The results, signed off by Board Chairman Professor Joshua Alabi and Managing Director Farihan Alhassan, are unaudited and prepared under International Financial Reporting Standards.

Ghana’s Zinabu Issah Wins First Glasgow 2026 Medal

News Ghana
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Ghana’s Zinabu Issah Wins First Glasgow 2026 Medal

Ghanaian para-athlete Zinabu Issah won silver in the women’s shot put F57 final at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games on Sunday, securing the country’s first medal of the Games with a season-best throw of 8.65 metres.

India’s Sharmila Dhankar took gold with 9.81 metres. Bronze went to India’s Shilpa K. Shyla after Nigeria’s Eucharia Iyiazi was disqualified following an official review. The 46-year-old Issah, competing in the F57 category for athletes with lower-limb impairments who throw from a seated position, had already won silver in discus at the World Para Athletics Grand Prix in Dubai earlier this year.

Samson Deen, president of Ghana’s National Paralympic Committee and of the African Paralympic Committee, said Issah will receive £2,000 through a personal medal-bonus initiative he introduced ahead of the Games, which pays Ghanaian para-athletes £3,000 for gold, £2,000 for silver and £1,000 for bronze. Ghana’s Ministry of Sports and Recreation is separately paying Issah statutory prize money of $3,000 for the medal, under standard government incentives for international podium finishes.

“This bonus is our way of recognising their sacrifice, determination and excellence,” Deen said, congratulating Issah and calling her medal a source of pride for Ghana’s wider para-sport community.

Deen said the same incentive scheme, which he described as a personal initiative rather than an official Paralympic Committee programme, will be expanded and formally relaunched for the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games at a ceremony in Accra ahead of Team Ghana’s qualification campaign. He said that event will also introduce the Follow My Athlete Scheme, intended to connect individual para-athletes with corporate sponsors and philanthropists, though the full prize structure and sponsorship details have not yet been released.

MTN Pushes Home Fibre as Coverage Stays Limited

Roger A. Agana
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MTN Pushes Home Fibre as Coverage Stays Limited

MTN Ghana’s Chief Home Officer, Richard Acheampong, said dependable home internet is becoming as essential as electricity and water, even as fibre broadband reaches fewer than 1% of Ghanaians nationally.

Speaking at an MTN Bright Conversations event in Accra on Sunday, Acheampong said the home has become “the centre of many things,” pointing to remote work, online learning, entertainment and home-based businesses as reasons households now need connectivity built for multiple simultaneous users rather than a single mobile line. “Customers do not wake up thinking about megabits per second; they simply want internet that works,” he said.

National Communications Authority data for the fourth quarter of 2025 put Ghana’s fibre broadband subscriptions at roughly 262,000, against a population of about 33.75 million, implying national penetration of under 1%. Accra accounted for roughly two-thirds of those installations, underscoring how concentrated fibre rollout remains in Ghana’s largest cities even as mobile data and voice services have reached near-universal coverage.

MTN holds close to half of Ghana’s home internet market, according to industry trackers, and cut its unlimited fibre pricing by nearly 70% in June following engagement with government, a reduction the company has not directly linked to this week’s remarks. Acheampong pushed back on the idea that fibre serves only wealthier households, saying families in modest communities are increasingly subscribing because of what reliable internet means for their children’s education and small businesses.

The event follows MTN’s announcement roughly a week earlier of a $1 billion commitment to digital infrastructure aimed at expanding fibre into more homes, a pledge that left open questions about rollout beyond major cities and the reliability of the power grid underpinning any home network. Competition in the segment is also emerging from Starlink, the satellite broadband service that had accumulated close to 23,000 Ghanaian subscriptions by the end of 2025, with roughly 40% of them outside the largest cities MTN and rival Telecel currently prioritise.

Acheampong said MTN’s longer-term ambition extends beyond connectivity itself, toward homes where technology anticipates household routines and automates everyday tasks, though he did not set a timeline for that shift.

Chip Stocks Crash as AI Circular Financing Fears Grow

Roger A. Agana
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Chip Stocks Crash as AI Circular Financing Fears Grow

South Korea’s Kospi index closed down 10.8% on Tuesday, its steepest one-day fall since March, as a semiconductor sell-off deepened and investors questioned whether financing arrangements underpinning the AI boom can hold. Samsung Electronics fell roughly 13-14% and SK Hynix about 15%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped nearly 4%.

The rout was triggered partly by Chinese competition: memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies saw its shares surge on a Shanghai listing debut this week, and reports emerged that China has begun mass-producing its own deep ultraviolet lithography equipment, a core semiconductor manufacturing tool previously dominated by Western and Japanese suppliers. Nvidia and other US chip stocks also fell in tandem with the Asian slide.

Nigel Green, chief executive of the deVere Group, an international financial advisory firm, argues the deeper problem is a financing loop running through Nvidia, OpenAI and Oracle. Nvidia has committed up to $100 billion to OpenAI, largely to fund purchases of Nvidia’s own chips; OpenAI in turn has pledged roughly $300 billion to Oracle for cloud computing capacity, helping build Oracle’s backlog of contracted business to more than $500 billion. Analysts have flagged that OpenAI is projected to lose close to $14 billion in 2026 even as its infrastructure commitments run into the hundreds of billions. Reports this week said Nvidia sought bank financing for part of a separate $250 billion OpenAI-linked data center project after lenders proved unwilling to finance OpenAI directly.

“The market is finally pricing the circularity risk it has been ignoring for months,” Green said, arguing that revenue booked by Nvidia, OpenAI and Oracle from the same transactions risks overstating genuine demand for AI infrastructure.

Nvidia’s own market value has slipped from roughly $5.1 trillion in late July to around $4.5 trillion as the sell-off spread, though it remains the world’s most valuable listed company. Nvidia executives have pushed back on circularity concerns in recent months, calling the criticism overstated and describing the OpenAI partnership as core to both companies’ growth.

Green said investors should judge AI holdings by whether their revenue originates outside the small circle of interlinked chipmakers and cloud providers, and by how much of a company’s advantage would survive Chinese competitors offering comparable performance at lower cost. He said the closer question is not whether AI spending continues, but which companies can sustain it without vendor financing propping up their customers.

Izwe Profit Falls as Lender Shrinks Loan Book

Roger A. Agana
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Izwe Profit Falls as Lender Shrinks Loan Book

Izwe Savings and Loans PLC’s profit after tax fell 41% to GHS2.0 million in the six months to June 30, as the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE)-listed lender deliberately cut its loan book to protect capital, unaudited half-year results published this week show.

Net loans and advances dropped to GHS301.1 million from GHS402.1 million a year earlier, a company statement accompanying the results said, describing the pullback as a shift toward “selective growth” and asset quality over volume. Net operating income fell to GHS30.3 million from GHS34.8 million, while credit loss expenses eased to GHS10.1 million from GHS11.3 million, suggesting the smaller loan book carried fewer bad debts. Earnings per share fell to 0.99 Ghana cedi from 1.67 cedi.

Even as lending and profit contracted, Izwe’s cash position strengthened. Cash and cash equivalents rose to GHS67.6 million from GHS45.1 million, helped by GHS77 million in net cash generated from operating activities. Customer deposits fell to GHS246.9 million from GHS344.4 million, and total liabilities dropped to roughly GHS387 million, which the company attributed to continued balance-sheet de-risking rather than funding strain. Shareholders’ equity rose to GHS75.6 million from GHS70.9 million on retained earnings.

The results land against an improving but still uneven macroeconomic backdrop. Headline inflation rose to 5.3% in June from 3.7% in May, still within the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) target range, while the central bank held its Monetary Policy Rate at 14.0% at its July meeting. The 91-day Treasury bill rate stood at about 5.7% at the end of June, and the cedi traded between roughly GHS11.4 and GHS12.3 to the US dollar during the month. Across Ghana’s banking sector more broadly, the BoG has reported improving asset quality, with the industry-wide non-performing loan ratio falling to 16.1% from 23.1% a year earlier and the capital adequacy ratio rising to 20.4%, a trend consistent with Izwe’s own reduced credit losses.

Izwe said it expects real GDP growth of about 4.8% for 2026, down from an estimated 6.0% in 2025, and plans to pursue “controlled growth” in the second half of the year, prioritising credit quality, liquidity and funding stability over expanding the loan book.

The company’s results were signed off by Managing Director Raymond K. Bismarck and Chairperson Carole Ramella and have not yet been audited.

Ghana’s ATM Fee Rules Trail Behind Global Peers, Study Finds

Roger A. Agana
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Ghana’s ATM Fee Rules Trail Behind Global Peers, Study Finds

Ghana has no regulatory cap on Automated Teller Machine (ATM) fees and no rule forcing banks to show a withdrawal charge on screen before a customer confirms it, according to a policy brief published in June by CUTS International Accra, a consumer advocacy group with offices across Africa, Asia and the West.

The brief, comparing Ghana’s ATM fee framework against India, the United States, the European Union and Australia, found Ghana is the only one of the five without a legal ceiling on third-party withdrawal fees. India caps additional charges at 23 rupees per transaction. Australia’s four largest banks voluntarily scrapped most domestic ATM fees in 2017, while European Union rules under the bloc’s Revised Payment Services Directive require on-screen disclosure before every transaction completes.

The gap matters because customers often only discover a withdrawal fee after checking a bank statement or receiving an SMS alert, the brief said, since Ghana’s Bank of Ghana requires lenders to publish tariff guides but not to display exact charges at the machine itself. One consumer surveyed for a related 2025 CUTS study on the state of Ghanaian consumers put it directly: “You use another bank’s ATM because your bank’s machine is down, and they charge you for it. It’s not our fault the machine isn’t working.”

The number of ATMs deployed by banks across Ghana reached 2,287 by the end of 2023, up 1.4% from the previous year, according to the central bank’s Payment Systems Oversight Annual Report cited in the brief. Ghana’s first ATM went live in 1995 through The Trust Bank, and interoperability between competing banks’ machines followed in 2007 through the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System.

The Bank of Ghana already has legal authority to regulate fees under the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019, and requires fee disclosure under a 2022 directive on digital financial services, but the brief argues that authority has not translated into on-screen disclosure requirements or fee caps.

CUTS International Accra recommends six changes: mandatory on-screen fee disclosure, a proceed-or-cancel prompt before any charge, a minimum of four free monthly third-party withdrawals per account, physical fee notices at machines, a voluntary industry push to phase out domestic ATM fees altogether, and a broader legislative review of the 2019 Act to give these protections lasting legal force. The brief was authored by Appiah Kusi Adomako, Shadrack Nii Yarboi Yartey and Dennis Osei.

The Bank of Ghana had not responded to the brief’s recommendations as of publication.

Bond Markets Signal Doubt Over Burnham’s Early Spending

Roger A. Agana
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Bond Markets Signal Doubt Over Burnham’s Early Spending

Financial adviser Nigel Green says Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s opening decisions point toward higher taxes or heavier borrowing, as UK bond yields climbed to two-month highs in the week since Burnham took office.

Green, chief executive of the deVere Group, an international financial advisory firm, argues that Burnham has committed Britain to roughly £1.7 billion in new spending, including a rough sleeping fund, a VAT cut on electricity and a bus fare cap, while Parliament remains in summer recess and months before the autumn Budget is drafted. “Parliament is not even sitting. Imagine what happens when it is,” Green said.

Burnham became prime minister on July 20 after Keir Starmer resigned, and told reporters his government would use whatever fiscal flexibility was available under existing rules. UK gilt markets reacted within hours: Reuters and Bloomberg data show the 10-year yield rose 8 basis points to about 5.04%, already the highest in the G7, while the 30-year yield climbed to roughly 5.75%, its highest level in two months. Burnham has since named John Healey, previously his defence secretary, as chancellor in place of Rachel Reeves.

The market moves follow official figures showing UK government borrowing hit £23.3 billion in May, up 30.4% on the previous year, with debt interest payments of £11.7 billion the highest for that month on record, according to the Office for National Statistics. Public sector net debt stood at 95.1% of GDP, a level Green describes as the worst since the 1960s. Those figures predate Burnham’s premiership and reflect fiscal pressure Burnham inherited on taking office.

Green said the government’s stated ambitions on rough sleeping, social care and the NHS, which Burnham has separately warned could “collapse” without reform, carry a defence-spending backdrop of their own: a NATO-linked path toward 3.5% of GDP by 2035, which Green estimates at roughly £36 billion a year, on top of a defence funding gap he puts at almost £5 billion. Those defence figures are Green’s own estimates and could not be independently verified against a government source.

“A Prime Minister cannot warn that the NHS will collapse, admit he has no timeline to fix it, then keep signing cheques as if the Treasury is bottomless,” Green said, adding that households should expect the squeeze to show up either in tax thresholds, dividends, capital gains and pensions relief, or in mortgage pricing as lenders pass on higher gilt yields.

Green frames the coming autumn Budget as a test of whether Burnham’s government can avoid a repeat of the market turmoil that followed Liz Truss’s 2022 mini-Budget. He also encourages investors and business owners to consider diversifying away from concentrated UK exposure, advice consistent with deVere Group’s business as a firm that sells international wealth management services.

Downing Street has not issued a public response to Green’s specific comments.

Ghanaian Developer Turns Viral IShowSpeed Moment Into Game

Roger A. Agana
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Ghanaian Developer Turns Viral IShowSpeed Moment Into Game

Ghanaian game developer Mathias Asamoah has launched CityQuest, a tourism and STEM game platform whose pilot episode is built around the viral shea butter massage American streamer IShowSpeed received during his January 26 visit to Accra’s Shea Butter Museum.

The pilot, called Kruya, is set at Labadi Beach and takes its name from the “Kuriya Kuriya” chant sung by the women who massaged the streamer, a moment that drew a livestream audience of more than 50 million and helped push an estimated 20 million online searches related to Ghana’s shea butter industry, according to remarks President John Mahama made at a business forum in February. The museum, owned by entrepreneur Hamamat Montia, saw its bookings fill through mid-March after the visit went viral.

Asamoah, whose earlier release STEM Citizens used a Cape Coast-inspired setting to teach science and engineering concepts through play, said CityQuest applies the same approach to Ghanaian landmarks more broadly, folding STEM puzzles and environmental themes into gameplay set in real locations.

He said the idea took shape during a walk along the beaches of Cape Coast, where he was struck by plastic waste and open defecation alongside the coastline’s history. “It made me wonder how we can expect people to protect what they’ve never learned to appreciate,” Asamoah said.

Beyond the digital game, CityQuest runs two live tours in Accra: an interactive bus adventure across the city’s landmarks, and a walking game through Jamestown’s historic streets. Asamoah said revenue from the tours funds development of new digital episodes.

CityQuest is not the first Ghanaian venture to draw on IShowSpeed’s visit, which also included the streamer receiving the Akan name Barima Kofi Akuffo and Ghana’s foreign affairs ministry approving him for citizenship over his mother’s ancestry. Tourism operators have since referenced the visit in marketing material, though CityQuest is among the first to build an interactive product directly around it.

The Kruya episode is available now at cityquest.africa. Asamoah said he plans further episodes covering other Ghanaian regions and, eventually, other African countries.

Minerals Commission orders Earl Group, Small-Scale Miner to halt operations in Gbane over concession dispute

Isaac Kofi Dzokpo
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Minerals Commission orders Earl Group, Small-Scale Miner to halt operations in Gbane over concession dispute

The Chief Inspector of Mines at the Inspectorate Division of the Minerals Commission has ordered Earl International Group Ghana Gold Limited, a large-scale mining company, and Nanlamtaaba Enterprise, a small-scale mining firm, to immediately cease mining operations in a disputed concession at Gbane in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region.

The stop-work order is to remain in force pending investigations into mineral rights, permits and boundary claims.

The directive follows reports of violent clashes underground between workers of the two companies over boundary disputes. The clashes occurred after a court granted police protection to Nanlamtaaba Enterprise to mine in the contested area. Police sources say injuries were recorded in separate incidents involving workmen and security guards of both companies.

On November 21, 2025, the Bolgatanga High Court, presided over by His Lordship Justice Ernest Pascal Gemadzie, ordered the Upper East Regional Police Command to provide protection and assistance to small-scale miner Zongdaan Boyak Kolog, popularly known as Poloo, who operates as NanlamtaabaEnterprise, to undertake mining operations in Gbane.

The court granted the order despite the miner not holding a valid mining licence or operating permits from the Minerals Commission and the Environmental Protection Authority [EPA].

The order followed an application by lawyers for the small-scale miner who alleged trespass on his concession by youth of the Gbane community and by Earl International Group Ghana Gold Limited.

Records show that in February 2023, Mr. Kolog sued the Chinese-owned large-scale mining firm, the Minerals Commission, the Chief of Gbane and others over ownership of a 25-acre concession. This was in spite of the fact that Earl International had obtained a 14-year mining lease covering 16.02 square kilometres in April 2019. In May 2020, a 25-acre small-scale licence, reportedly falling within the already leased area, was subsequently issued to the small-scale miner for five years.

Following the grant of police protection, lawyers for Earl International filed an application to vacate the order, arguing it was based on an expired licence.

Records and evidence before the court showed that NanlamtaabaEnterprise’s licence expired on May 14, 2025, and had not been renewed.

Counsel for Earl International argued that granting police protection to mine within the company’s concession without a valid and subsisting licence and without requisite permits under the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 [Act 703] and the EPA, amounted to granting state protection to an illegal mining operation.

Lawyers for the small-scale miner claimed a renewal application had been submitted to the Minerals Commission. However, counsel for the Commission, which is a defendant in the matter, told the court it had no record of such an application.

The Commission contended that the procedure used was flawed and did not comply with guidelines for renewal under L.I. 2176, which requires applications to be submitted to the District Office of the Commission and not by courier to the Chief Executive Officer.

The Commission further stated that NanlamtaabaEnterprise has no mining permit, noting that mining may only be undertaken after a permit has been obtained from the Chief Inspector of Mines and must cease upon its withdrawal or suspension.

In his ruling, Justice Gemadzie held that although Nanlamtaaba’s licence had expired, it still owned the licence and the concession until terminated by the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources in accordance with Section 87 of Act 703. He consequently dismissed the application to set aside the order.

Dissatisfied with the ruling, Earl International filed an application for stay of execution pending an appeal at the Court of Appeal. That application was also dismissed.

In his ruling, Justice Gemadzie noted that the decision to grant police protection to the plaintiff to enter the concession and mine, with or without a subsisting licence, was hinged on evidence that the applicant faced opposition from some persons in his efforts to access and mine in the disputed concession.

At the time of filing this report, sources have confirmed that Earl International has filed a repeat application for stay of execution at the Court of Appeal.

MTN Chief Ties Africa’s Future to Economic Access, Not Borders

Roger A. Agana
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MTN Chief Ties Africa’s Future to Economic Access, Not Borders

MTN Group chief executive Ralph Mupita told African leaders in Johannesburg on July 23 that economic opportunity, not migration control, will shape the continent’s prosperity over the coming decade.

Mupita made the remarks during a panel at the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation (KMF) Winter Seminar, held at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in Sandton under the theme “Continent and Migration.” MTN sponsored this year’s edition.

The gathering carried added weight because it took place as South Africa grapples with rising anti-immigration protests and reported vigilante attacks tied to its illegal-immigration debate. International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola, addressing the same seminar on behalf of Deputy President Paul Mashatile, said the country’s migration tensions demanded honest and constructive debate rather than division.

Ghana’s Finance Minister, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, sat on the same opening panel alongside former President Kgalema Motlanthe and MTN Group independent chairman Mcebisi Jonas, giving Accra a direct stake in a discussion largely framed around South Africa’s domestic politics.

Mupita argued that treating migration purely as a crisis obscures the deeper problem: opportunity is spread unevenly across the continent. He said governments that set predictable policy give businesses reason to commit capital and resources, while people move mainly because prospects differ sharply from one country to the next.

He pointed to Africa’s young population as a potential economic driver, but said that advantage only converts into growth if countries invest in skills, infrastructure, financing, functioning markets and strong institutions. Mupita added that MTN’s own growth across the continent has tracked Africa’s broader economic path since the company’s founding in South Africa in 1994, and said mobile and digital services now link people to schools, jobs, financial tools and markets.

The debate echoed comparisons drawn earlier in the seminar by EU representative Sandra Kramer, who described how the European Union overhauled its own migration system after a difficult decade of political strain, producing the Pact on Migration and Asylum that took effect on June 12, 2026.

MTN, listed on the JSE under the ticker MTN, is pursuing an “Ambition 2030” strategy aimed at expanding digital platforms for consumers, households and businesses across its African markets.

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