Ghana's central bank on July 1 adopted a new framework requiring banks to include their risk-weighted assets when calculating their capital adequacy ratios.

Banks, however, have until Jan. 1, 2019, to comply with the Capital Requirement Directive, which also sets the new minimum capital requirement for banks at 400 million cedis, 3x more than the current minimum capital requirement of 120 million cedis. Banks have until the end of the year to raise capital.

The new measure also puts on banks' boards the responsibility of determining both the availability of eligible capital and the measurement of risks to capital in the Basel II framework. The Bank of Ghana said a lender's board must set up a risk management strategy or framework "that defines the risk culture and governs a robust process to identify and manage all risks in the business."

The central bank previously said banks can satisfy the new directive through fresh capital injection, capitalization of income surplus or a combination of both. However, they are prohibited from capitalizing revaluation reserves, reserves on financial instruments through other comprehensive income, statutory reserves, credit risk reserves and unaudited profit.

As of June 29, US$1 was equivalent to 4.79 Ghanaian cedis.