Ghana’s shipping industry faces new mandatory guidelines governing foreign exchange practices, effective immediately.
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the Ghana Shippers’ Authority (GSA) jointly issued the directive on July 22, 2025, compelling all shipping service providers operating within the country to adopt strict transparency measures for currency conversion. This move aims to standardize practices and protect customers from arbitrary exchange rate applications in a critical sector for the national economy.
According to the joint BoG-GSA announcement, every shipping company must now publicly display its daily exchange rate used for customer invoicing. This rate must be readily accessible, published prominently on company websites and physically at their operational offices. Crucially, customers must be informed of the applicable exchange rate before receiving any invoice or making payment, ensuring upfront transparency in financial transactions.
The guidelines explicitly require specific details on every invoice issued. Official records state that invoices must clearly show the original currency of the service provided, the precise exchange rate applied, the exact date that rate was used, and the final converted amount in either Ghana Cedis (GHS) or US Dollars (USD). This level of detail is designed to eliminate ambiguity and provide customers with a clear audit trail for their payments.
Further, the directive mandates that exchange rates applied by shipping companies must reflect prevailing market realities. Rates cannot be set arbitrarily but must align closely with the commercial bank rates, which themselves should track the BoG’s official interbank rate. This provision seeks to prevent businesses from imposing unfair conversion costs on customers through inflated margins.
A formal complaint mechanism is established under the new rules. Customers disputing an applied exchange rate must first lodge their complaint directly with the shipping service provider involved. If the provider fails to resolve the issue satisfactorily, the customer then has the right to escalate the dispute to the Ghana Shippers’ Authority for formal intervention and redress.
These new guidelines operate under the existing legal framework of Ghana’s Foreign Exchange Act, 2006 (Act 723) and related regulatory notices. The BoG and GSA emphasize that failure to comply constitutes a breach of these regulations. Non-compliant companies face potential administrative sanctions, though the specific penalties were not detailed in the initial public release. The rules took effect on July 22, 2025, and will remain enforceable unless formally amended or revoked by the Bank of Ghana.
