'Set up Apex bank for micro-finance sector'
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Mrs Acquah made the call when she delivered the fourth lecture in the annual AngloGold Ashanti (Ghana) lecture series on businesses in Africa last Wednesday in Accra.
The lecture discussed issues that influenced policies and matters affecting businesses in Africa to bridge the gap between the ideas of academia and practice in the business world.
Speaking on the theme; “Microfinance: Its revolution and impact on the economic development and growth of emerging economies over the past three decades”, Mrs Acquah said microfinance institutions granted small loans to entrepreneurs who could not ordinarily qualify for conventional bank loans.
she said the microfinance system was generally recognised by the world when economic players accessed its effectiveness through the Grameen Bank initiated by Professor Mohammed Yunus in 1976, and was aimed at breaking a cycle of poverty in emerging economies in Africa.
Mrs Acquah said the home-based self-employed often emphasised by the microfinance institutions limited the potential for people to escape from poverty and marginalisation.
She said most of the critics were focused on moving the models forward and not discrediting the approach in general.
Mrs Acquah said it was generally accepted that the microfinance success in Asia and Africa had arisen out of the old communal lifestyle of lending monies from family members to operate micro business.
She said Ghana’s microfinance was seen as encompassing the provision of financial services and the management of small amounts of money through a range of products and systems of intermediary functions that targeted low income clients.
She said the consistent growth in size and numbers of micro finance institutions clearly exposed the inability of commercial banks to satisfy the loan and credit requirements of many businesses and individuals.
Mrs Acquah said the Bank of Ghana had recognised the major impact of microfinance on the economy, providing for its operation under the Non-Bank Financial Institutions (Act 774) in 2008, hence, 228 licensed institutions contribute a capital of over GH¢407 million to the economy.
By Daniel Agbenyega/Daily Graphic/Ghana
