Ghana has made major strides in expanding access to financial services, particularly through mobile money and digital payment systems. However, the country still faces a major challenge when it comes to giving small businesses access to affordable credit.
Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Matilda Asante-Asiedu, says the next measure of financial inclusion should go beyond access to payment services and focus on whether individuals and businesses can access credit, insurance and investment on fair terms.
Speaking at the Distinguished Digital Finance Lecture during National ICT Week, she said Ghana had developed advanced digital payment infrastructure but had not built equally effective systems for extending credit.
She highlighted the US$4.8 billion annual financing gap facing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as one of the biggest challenges confronting businesses and the financial sector.
“We have built extraordinary payment rails, but we have not yet built equally extraordinary credit rails,” she said.
According to Asante-Asiedu, Ghana’s growing digital payment ecosystem presents an opportunity to address the problem. She said transaction histories could provide valuable information about the financial health and creditworthiness of small businesses.
Merchant payment records, she explained, can show how frequently a business trades, whether its revenues are increasing or declining, and how predictable its income is.
“This is not just background information. It is a credit record,” she stressed.
She also pointed to Ghana’s heavy reliance on traditional collateral, such as land and buildings, as another barrier to SME financing.
Businesses with strong cash flows, contracts and receivables can still struggle to secure loans when they lack the conventional assets demanded by lenders.
The Second Deputy Governor therefore called for the implementation of open banking and open finance frameworks, arguing that their success should ultimately be measured by whether they help close the SME financing gap rather than simply by the number of digital platforms or APIs created.
She further urged stronger coordination among the Bank of Ghana, the National Insurance Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Pensions Regulatory Authority to ensure financial innovation is properly regulated according to the risks involved.
As Ghana expands its digital financial ecosystem, she also called for stronger cybersecurity measures, particularly among smaller financial institutions.
For Asante-Asiedu, the ultimate goal is to ensure that digital financial infrastructure does more than facilitate payments.
She said the same phone that allows a market trader to send money within seconds should also enable that trader to borrow against a viable business and access competitive financial services.
“For me, this is what innovation at scale means,” she said.
