Banks wrote off GH¢1.23bn as bad debt in half-year-2026

In the first half of 2026, Ghanaian banks reported writing off GH¢1.23 billion in bad debt, marking a 38% year-on-year increase from the GH¢893.0 million recorded in June 2025. The classification of this provision was attributed to loan losses and depreciation. Despite these write-offs, the asset quality risks in the banking sector remained elevated in June 2026, according to the July 2026 Monetary Policy Report.

Nevertheless, the non-performing loan (NPL) ratio showed improvement, falling from 23.1% in June 2025 to 16.1% in June 2026. When adjusted for the provisioned loan loss category, the NPL ratio further reduced from 8.5% to 4.6% over the same period. The total stock of non-performing loans also decreased to GH¢19.9 billion in June 2026, down from GH¢20.7 billion in the previous year.

These figures suggest an improvement in credit risk conditions, although vulnerabilities persist in the banking sector's asset quality. The decomposition of non-performing loans (NPLs) continued to be dominated by private sector credit, with its contribution rising to 98.0% in June 2026 from 96.4% a year earlier. Conversely, the share of NPLs linked to the public sector declined to 2.0% from 3.6% during the same period, indicating a sectoral shift towards private sector credit.