Ghana has become remarkably good at moving money. A trader in Techiman can receive payment on her phone in seconds. A customer in Accra can send money across networks without thinking about which financial institution sits behind the transaction. Millions of people now transact digitally every day.
Ghana can move money in seconds. But can the same financial system help the person who earned it borrow when she needs to grow?
That was one of the central issues raised by Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Mrs. Matilda Asante-Asiedu, at the Distinguished Digital Finance Lecture, where she called for greater use of Ghana’s digital financial infrastructure to improve access to credit.
She said Ghana has already established strong foundations for financial innovation, but the next challenge is to connect those systems more effectively to the financing needs of businesses and individuals, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises.
“Ghana already has real foundations for scaled financial innovation. The task ahead of us is not invention. It is coordination,” she said.
From digital payments to digital credit
Ghana’s digital payments ecosystem has expanded rapidly.
In June 2026 alone, mobile money platforms processed 954 million transactions valued at about GH¢493 billion. Registered mobile money accounts stood at roughly 84.6 million, of which 26.4 million were active, supported by more than one million registered agents.
Mrs. Asante-Asiedu said the significance of that infrastructure extends beyond the ability to send and receive money.
The transactions also generate information about how individuals and businesses earn, save and spend.
A mobile money history can show the volume and frequency of payments, whether business activity is growing or declining, savings patterns and the regularity of income.
“That is not background information; it is a credit record. We have simply not built the habit of reading it as such,” she said.
The issue is particularly relevant to SMEs, which can have active businesses and regular cash flows but still face lengthy processes when seeking working capital.
A business may receive payment through an instant payment system within seconds, yet wait considerably longer for a credit decision when it needs financing to fulfil a contract.
Mrs. Asante-Asiedu described the disconnect between transaction data and access to credit as a major unrealised opportunity.
SME financing and the collateral question
The Second Deputy Governor also said Ghana’s SME financing challenge should not be viewed simply as a shortage of capital.
She noted that banks, pension funds, investors, development finance institutions and risk-sharing schemes have resources that could support businesses.
The difficulty, she said, is partly in the architecture through which capital reaches businesses and the information lenders use to assess them.
She questioned whether traditional collateral requirements adequately reflect the way many businesses now create value.
A company may have a confirmed purchase order from a major retailer, an export contract with an international buyer or a multi-year service agreement, but still struggle to obtain financing because it lacks conventional assets such as land or buildings.
“These are claims on future income that can be verified today,” she said.
Mrs. Asante-Asiedu said the Bank of Ghana would look seriously at what its regulatory frameworks allow lenders to count as security.
She also pointed to invoice discounting, which allows businesses to raise working capital against outstanding receivables, as an instrument that remains underdeveloped relative to the needs of Ghana’s SME sector.
Open banking could give businesses more financing options
Open banking and open finance are also expected to play a role in the Bank of Ghana’s approach to the financing gap.
Mrs. Asante-Asiedu said the Bank is working to finalise and implement its open banking and open finance frameworks, with SME financing to be one measure of their effectiveness.
Under such a system, a business could give another financial provider permission to access its transaction history when seeking credit.
That could give lenders more information with which to assess businesses and allow SMEs to seek financing from providers other than their existing financial institution.
Mrs. Asante-Asiedu said the success of the frameworks should not be measured simply by the number of APIs published, but by whether they result in more credit reaching small businesses.
The approach will also require rules governing data ownership, customer consent, portability and liability, as financial information moves between institutions.
Regulation and cybersecurity
The growth of digital finance is also creating new regulatory and cybersecurity challenges.
Mrs. Asante-Asiedu said digital lenders, insurance technology companies and virtual asset providers increasingly operate across traditional regulatory boundaries.
She said the Bank of Ghana, National Insurance Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission should pursue more coordinated regulation through the Financial Stability Council, with innovation assessed according to the risks involved rather than which regulator oversees a particular business.
Cybersecurity, she said, has also become a constraint on the ability of the financial system to scale.
The concern is particularly important for smaller financial institutions that may not have the resources of larger banks to implement sophisticated security systems.
“Scale that is not secure is not scale; it is exposure,” she said.
She said the Bank would extend the resources supporting its Cyber and Information Security Directive, CISD 2026, to help ensure that cybersecurity standards can be met across the financial system, including smaller Community Banks.
Redefining financial inclusion
Mrs. Asante-Asiedu also argued that Ghana’s progress on financial inclusion should increasingly be measured by more than the number of accounts and digital transactions.
A market woman may have a mobile money account, years of transaction records and a consistent savings pattern, yet still struggle to obtain financing to expand her business.
For the Second Deputy Governor, that raises a broader question about whether someone who can access digital payments but cannot obtain affordable credit is fully served by the financial system.
“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,” she said.
She described the broader objective as “total financial health”, rather than simply determining whether someone holds an account.
The Bank of Ghana’s position puts greater emphasis on using the digital infrastructure Ghana has already built to improve how financial institutions assess businesses, allocate credit and offer customers more choices.
For SMEs in particular, the effectiveness of that approach will depend on how quickly transaction data can be incorporated into lending decisions, how collateral rules evolve and whether the regulatory and data-protection frameworks can keep pace with the expansion of digital finance.
