EL7.AI
Central BanksMedium•7 November 2026•
3 min read

Ghana proposes launching 7-day bills by end-November to improve liquidity management

Key Facts

1An IMF report proposed launching 7-day bills by end-November 2026 as part of liquidity management reform.
2The Bank of Ghana issues 14-day bills twice a week, while reducing its reliance on 56-day and 273-day bills, which were used extensively in 2025.
3Open market operation rates ranged from 18% to 28% during the 2025 tightening cycle, then the policy rate fell to 14% after cumulative cuts of 1,400 basis points.
4The 36-month non-financing Policy Coordination Instrument aims to anchor reforms and catalyze financing from donors and markets.
5The IMF set a target for gross international reserves equivalent to 6 months of import cover by end-2029.

The International Monetary Fund included the launch of 7-day bills among proposed reform targets to be met by end-November 2026, as part of an effort to modernize liquidity management in Ghana. The change aims to improve the efficiency of liquidity sterilization and limit short-term interest rate volatility, according to the Fund's staff report on the country. The proposal follows comments by the Bank of Ghana governor that the bank was considering a bill of that tenor to strengthen its liquidity management framework. The bank had described its earlier shift from 56-day to 14-day bills as making liquidity management more responsive and flexible. The governor said the bank reviews liquidity conditions weekly and adjusts the available instruments accordingly.

The bank's operations currently rely mainly on 14-day bills, which it issues twice a week, according to its published responses to media questions in May 2026. The bank said its use of the instrument increased as it scaled back its reliance on 56-day and 273-day bills, which were used extensively in 2025 to absorb the structural liquidity surplus. The shift to shorter tenors reflects an adjustment in how the bank manages liquidity compared with that period. In an earlier briefing, the governor said the move from a 56-day to a 14-day tenor made management more flexible. He added that the 7-day instrument was under consideration at the time, before it later appeared among the reform targets in the Fund's report.

The tool update is also linked to changes in the cost of open market operations following the 2025 monetary tightening cycle. The Bank of Ghana said rates on those operations ranged from 18% to 28% during the tightening cycle, then fell to 14% after cumulative cuts of 1,400 basis points to the policy rate, according to data it published in May 2026. The bank added that lower rates help reduce the cost of liquidity sterilization. This context places the proposed shorter-tenor instrument among efforts to manage liquidity after the policy rate fell from levels seen during the tightening cycle. The bank also expected liquidity conditions to improve in 2026 as the main factors behind the previous surplus receded.

The reform comes within a broader program with the IMF. On 27 July 2026, the Fund confirmed that the 36-month Policy Coordination Instrument is non-financing. It said the instrument aims to anchor the reform agenda after the Extended Credit Facility arrangement ends and help catalyze financing from donors and markets. In its report on Ghana, the Fund linked the liquidity management update to broader aims of stabilizing inflation and supporting reserve accumulation. The report set a target of building gross international reserves to the equivalent of 6 months of import cover by end-2029. This places the bills reform within a broader effort to build the country's capacity to meet its external needs beyond day-to-day liquidity management.