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Ghana To Launch National Financial Inclusion Strategy

The Director of MasterCard Foundation on Financial Inclusion, Ann Miles during the Symposium on Financial Inclusion, which was held in Accra from November 9-10, said the level of financial inclusion in countries in the sub-Saharan Africa is insignificant with regards to other countries around the world.
 
She indicated that, in 2016, the general level of financial inclusion in the Sub-Saharan Africa stood at 34%.

According to her, the Foundation has been working tirelessly with a number of Financial Institutions, in order to help extend financial services to people who are unbanked or underbanked, to enable the closure of the gap on financial inclusion.

She said, the foundation had been able to help enroll these groups into the financial system to help boost the economy of the entire African countries. And she also expressed with the hope that, the initiative would shoot up in the next report.

“We are interested in seeing how telecommunication networks can link up with banks and financial institutions, extending their services,” Ann Miles emphasized.

According to her, since financial products and services continues to be expensive with it’s associated huge documentation requirement from the banks, it chased away the ordinary people from banking with the various financial institutions.

Dr. Ernest Addison, the Governor of Bank Of Ghana, during his keynote address said financial development has been substantial over the last 10 years in Ghana, and more broadly across sub-Saharan Africa, but this came after a period of two decades of financial sector stagnation.

“Ghana, among other regions in SSA, has led the world in innovative financial services such as mobile telephony and FinTech, leapfrogging traditional technology. Mobile banking has complemented traditional banking services, and reduced their cost, often prohibitively high for the poor and vulnerable households and small businesses, and filling the gaps in services left by the traditional banking sector,” he added.

Dr Addison stressed that the importance of financial inclusion for growth because it increases a country’s resilience and boosts economic growth through a number of sources, including by helping to mobilize savings, promoting information sharing, improving resource allocation, facilitating diversification and management of risks, promoting financial stability to the extent that deep and liquid financial systems with diverse instruments help dampen the impact of shocks, and overall serves as an effective tool for poverty alleviation.

“In Ghana, financial inclusion is seen as catalytic to social inclusion in the development process as it taps into the large informal sector. Various attempts have been made to target policies toward the vulnerable and economically excluded segments of the population.”

Dr Addison explained that the government, and for that matter Bank of Ghana, has consistently pursued policies in this direction in the past, including policies focused on directing credit to specific sectors of the economy and vulnerable groups in society. The regulatory environment was also revamped, and new guidelines were introduced to ensure efficient financial intermediation in the economy.

The Government of Ghana in collaboration with the World Bank, and as part of the broader objective for the financial sector, will soon be launching the National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) framework.

This initiative will support the overall vision of making available a broad range of affordable and quality financial services that meet the needs of all Ghanaians, and provided by sound, responsible, and innovative financial institutions.

Dr Addition opinioned: “More specifically, the strategy will target an increase access to formal financial services for the adult population from the current 58 percent to 75 percent by 2020, focusing primarily on relatively excluded groups. The increase in access to financial services is expected to create economic opportunities for all and contribute to poverty reduction and promote inclusive growth in the country.”

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