By Adnan Adams Mohammed
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has reiterated its commitment to driving a holistic financial inclusion agenda, declaring that true digital inclusion must move beyond mobile wallets and payments to unlock direct credit, insurance, and long-term investment for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across the nation.
Delivering the key remarks at the third edition of the Distinguished Digital Finance Lecture, Mrs. Matilda Asante-Asiedu, Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, outlined the central bank’s strategic direction for scaling digital finance responsibly while ensuring no economic actor is left behind.
“The next standard for inclusion in this country should be whether people can access credit, insurance, and investment on fair terms when they need to I am talking about total financial health, not simply whether they hold an account,” Mrs. Asante-Asiedu declared.
Bridging the $4.8 Billion SME Credit Gap
Addressing finance executives, fintech innovators, and industry stakeholders, the Second Deputy Governor highlighted that despite Ghana’s world-class payment interoperability infrastructure, a massive disconnect remains between digital transaction records and credit access. Ghana’s SME sector currently faces an estimated annual financing gap of nearly $4.8 billion.
“We have built extraordinary payment rails, but we have not yet built equally extraordinary credit rails,” Mrs. Asante-Asiedu noted. “An SME owner in Kumasi can receive payment for goods in three seconds through Instant Pay, but may wait three months or longer for a working-capital loan decision because that credit consideration is not built on the same digital footprint that just proved her capacity to receive payment.”
She emphasized that Ghana does not suffer from a capital shortage, but rather an architectural challenge regarding what financial institutions accept as collateral. She urged lenders to adapt to modern economic realities by reading alternative digital records such as mobile money histories, receivables, and signed contracts.
“A great deal of the value being created in Ghana today sits in contracts, in receivables, and in transaction histories rather than in fixed assets, but our systems have not yet caught up with that shift,” she explained.
A Solid Foundation for Innovation
Ghana’s digital payments landscape has experienced unprecedented growth. Through the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS), mobile money wallets, bank accounts, and card schemes operate on a fully interoperable network.
954 Million Transactions: Processed via mobile money platforms in June 2026 alone, with a total value of approximately GHS 493 billion.
84.6 Million Accounts: Total registered mobile money accounts in the country, supported by 26.4 million active accounts and over one million registered agents.
2 Million+ Users: Onboarded onto the bank-led mobile payment platform, GhanaPay, since its launch in 2022.
To preserve stability without stifling growth, the Bank of Ghana has implemented forward-looking regulatory measures:
Regulatory Sandbox Framework: Allows fintechs to test novel products from digital lending to insurtech under active central bank supervision.
Digital Credit Services Directive: Licensing regime introduced to bring short-term digital lenders out of the regulatory shadows.
Cyber and Information Security Directive (CISD 2026): Standards tailored for cloud computing, AI-driven credit scoring, and evolving cybersecurity risks.
Microfinance Sector Modernization: Transforming 147 Rural and Community Banks under the Revised Microfinance Sector Framework 2026 to deepen last-mile delivery.
Key Commitments for the Road Ahead
The central bank outlined four concrete commitments to ensure digital financial innovation yields real economic growth:
Finalize Open Banking Frameworks: Measure success by the volume of credit extended to small businesses based on transparent transaction data.
Re-evaluate Collateral Frameworks: Expand acceptable security rules so verified receivables and purchase orders can unlock working capital.
Harmonize Financial Regulation: Strengthen cross-sector coordination through the Financial Stability Council alongside the National Insurance Commission (NIC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Democratize Cybersecurity: Provide systemic support under CISD 2026 so that smaller institutions and Community Banks can adequately withstand cyber threats.
Closing her address, Mrs. Asante-Asiedu reminded stakeholders that digital transformation must serve ordinary citizens at the grassroots level.
“Scale is as much a regulatory achievement as it is a technological one,” she stated. “Our task now is to make sure that the same phone that lets a market trader in Techiman send money in three seconds also lets her borrow against the business she has spent a decade building, on fair and competitive terms.”
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