Find out who is Ghana Stock Market's biggest individual investor.

Citifm ONLINE (08/Aug./2013)- Businessman and one of two of the Ghana Stock Exchange’s largest individual investors Samuel Oduro Mintah was over this weekend conferred on with a lifetime achievement awards at the 3rd Ghana investment Awards held in Accra.

Mr Mintah’s investment portfolio in the Stock market is estimated to be about three Million Ghana Cedis.

2-day Capital Market Conference in Ghana.

Under the theme "The Capital Market: A key to Economic Growth and Development", the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in collaboration  with the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) and Ghana Securities Industry Association (GSIA) are convening a two-day conference at the National College of Physicians and Surgeons in Accra on 9th and 10th May. 

I hope this conference achieves it's aim and bring about relevant discussions of issues relating to the Capital Market to drive policies for the industry.  

I hope it doesn't become just one event for our policy makers, regulators, financial industry players, parliamentarians, academia and capital market participants to sit and talk about irrelevant topics and issues that won't help the industry in anyway. I 'll be glad to partake in the confab this week, by my schedule is just too tight. . Mr Seth Tekper, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning would be there to give the keynote address whiles P.V. Obeng, Chairman of National Planning Development Committee would chair the Opening Ceremony.

All interested parties should do well to join this conference for the development of the capital market and our economy as a whole

Is Ezwich stealing from the Cashless Society? Greed vs Pain

The ezwich system which is supposed to make life easier for us is causing more pain by ‘draining’ our accounts more than necessary. Ezwich is the brand name for the National Switch and Smart-card payment system and this system offers Deposit taking financial institutions (universal banks, rural banks and Saving & Loans) a platform that enables them to interoperate, obviously at the expense of the customers or users of the ezwich. The National Service Personnel

Looking at the GH 2012 Budget, the Bond way.

The 2012 Budget with the theme “Infrastructural Development for Accelerated Growth and Job Creation” was described by the Majority in Parliament as the best ever but the Minority said it was a repetition of the past budget. The Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor outlined in his speech, the plans for the Bond Market and that was what caught my attention.

Over the years, the capital market has been growing slowly and highly dominated by activities in the stock market. The bond market on the other hand is dominated by the Government bonds with very few corporate bonds. In order to ensure accelerated growth as predicted by the budget, the government plans to deepen the bond market. To ensure long term debt instruments, the government of Ghana would be issuing a 7-year and 10-year fixed rate bond next year. In addition, the government will set up a National Bond Market Committee in 2012 to undertake the tasks. Dr. Kwabena Duffour mentioned that, this Committee would be tasked to first of all, identify the constraints in the development of corporate bond market. Moreover, it would study and recommend legal, institutional and process changes needed to accelerate the development of a corporate bond market.

 The Minister further outlined that; this committee would monitor the performance of the government bond market and to improve its effectiveness as an anchor for the corporate bond market. In regards of deepening the bond market, this committee would finally assist the private sector to access the bond market by proposing appropriate financial/technical assistance mechanisms.

This move by the Government for the 2012 fiscal year is good for the bond market and the capital market as a whole.

We hope to see it manifest. Else......................