Ghana’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are grappling with an estimated US$4.8 billion annual financing gap, raising concerns over their ability to expand, create jobs and contribute fully to economic growth, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has revealed.
Despite Ghana’s rapid progress in digital payments, thousands of businesses still struggle to secure affordable working capital, exposing a major disconnect between the country’s sophisticated payment infrastructure and access to credit.
Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Matilda Asante-Asiedu, said Ghana had successfully built systems that allow businesses and consumers to move money almost instantly but had yet to develop equally effective mechanisms for converting digital transaction histories into financing opportunities.
“We have built extraordinary payment rails, but we have not yet built equally extraordinary credit rails,” she said.
Ms Asante-Asiedu made the remarks at the University of Ghana during the National ICT Week celebration, where she delivered the third Distinguished Digital Finance Lecture.
SMEs Face Credit Squeeze
The US$4.8 billion funding shortfall represents a significant challenge for a segment of the economy that plays an important role in business activity and employment.
Limited access to affordable credit can prevent otherwise viable SMEs from purchasing inventory, acquiring equipment, hiring workers, executing contracts and expanding into new markets.
For businesses with limited cash reserves, delays in securing financing can also lead to missed opportunities and increased dependence on expensive alternative sources of funding.
Ms Asante-Asiedu said the situation was particularly concerning because significant financial resources already exist within Ghana’s banking, pension and investment sectors.
“The disconnect between transaction data and credit access, in my view, is the single largest unrealized opportunity in this room,” she said.
She noted that while an SME can receive payments from customers within seconds through digital platforms, the same business could spend months attempting to obtain working capital.
BoG Eyes Transaction Data for Lending
To address the problem, Ms Asante-Asiedu called for greater use of digital transaction histories in determining the creditworthiness of businesses.
Mobile money and other digital payment records, she explained, can provide financial institutions with valuable information on transaction volumes, payment frequency, merchant activity, income patterns and changes in business performance.
“This is not just background information. It is a credit record. We have simply not built the habit of reading it as such,” she stated.
Such an approach could particularly benefit businesses that generate consistent revenues but lack traditional collateral such as land and buildings.
The Second Deputy Governor argued that the changing nature of businesses requires financial institutions to look beyond physical assets when assessing loan applications.
Contracts, receivables, confirmed purchase orders, export contracts and long-term service agreements could potentially provide lenders with verifiable evidence of future income when supported by appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks.
GH¢493bn Mobile Money Transactions
Ghana already has a substantial digital foundation that could support the transformation of SME financing.
According to Ms Asante-Asiedu, mobile money platforms processed 954 million transactions valued at approximately GH¢493 billion in June 2026 alone.
The country also had approximately 84.6 million registered mobile money accounts, of which 26.4 million were active, supported by more than one million registered agents.
The challenge, she said, is to move beyond using digital platforms primarily to transfer money and begin leveraging the financial data generated through those transactions to improve access to productive credit.
BoG Turns to Open Banking
The Bank of Ghana is consequently advancing open banking and open finance frameworks as part of efforts to bridge the financing gap.
Ms Asante-Asiedu said the success of open banking should ultimately be measured by whether it enables SMEs to obtain more affordable and accessible financing rather than simply by the number of systems or application programming interfaces connected.
“The measure of success…should be how much credit” reaches businesses through the use of transaction data, she said.
She identified cybersecurity, data governance, regulatory fragmentation and inadequate digital infrastructure among the issues that must be addressed as Ghana develops a more data-driven financial system.
The BoG is expected to continue collaborating with financial regulators and other stakeholders to create an environment in which innovation can expand while protecting businesses and consumers.
Closing Ghana’s US$4.8 billion SME financing gap could therefore become a critical part of the country’s broader digital transformation, particularly as policymakers seek to translate the rapid growth in digital transactions into business expansion, investment and employment.
Source: capitalnewsonline.com
