FinTech for productivity, not just payments: Ghana’s next financial inclusion challenge
Beyond mobile money: Can Ghana turn digital payments into productive investment?
Ghana has made considerable progress in bringing financial transactions onto digital platforms. Mobile money has transformed how people transfer funds, receive payments and conduct everyday business. Yet an important question remains: has the expansion of digital finance translated into greater productive capacity across the economy? For the farmer who needs capital before the planting season, the market trader seeking to expand inventory, or the small manufacturer hoping to acquire equipment, the ability to transfer money is only one part of the financial inclusion equation. Ghana’s next challenge is to move beyond counting digital transactions and ask a more consequential question: how can FinTech finance production, stimulate enterprise growth and raise productivity?
From payment expansion to productive finance
The scale of Ghana’s digital payments ecosystem is impressive. The Bank of Ghana’s Payment Systems Oversight Annual Report 2025 records that mobile money transaction values reached GH¢4.54 trillion in 2025, representing a 50.8 per cent increase from GH¢3.01 trillion in 2024. The country also recorded 80.5 million registered mobile money accounts, of which approximately 26.6 million were active. These figures demonstrate the growing importance of digital financial services in Ghana’s economic life.
However, the impressive growth in transaction values should not be mistaken for equivalent growth in productive investment. Registered accounts do not necessarily represent unique individuals, while transaction values may include repeated transfers, cash management and other movements of existing funds. The volume of money moving through digital platforms, therefore, does not automatically reveal how much additional capital has reached businesses, financed equipment, supported agricultural production or generated employment.
This distinction matters because the ultimate economic value of FinTech lies not only in making payments faster and cheaper, but also in expanding the range of productive opportunities available to households and enterprises. A digital payment system becomes transformative when it helps businesses build reliable transaction records, access suitable financing, manage risks, reach markets and invest in growth.
Ghana has made substantial progress in developing the infrastructure for digital finance. The next task is to ensure that this infrastructure serves as a bridge between financial access and productive economic activity.
The missing link between digital finance and enterprise growth
Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are central to Ghana’s economic transformation. They support livelihoods, create employment, sustain local markets and provide opportunities for entrepreneurship, particularly among young people and women. Yet many small businesses continue to face difficulties securing affordable finance, obtaining suitable collateral, adopting new technologies and accessing wider markets.
Estimates frequently cited in Ghana’s policy discussions place MSMEs’ contribution at roughly 70 per cent of GDP and more than 80 per cent of employment. More broadly, World Bank Enterprise Survey evidence for sub-Saharan Africa indicates that access to finance is a significant constraint for a larger proportion of MSMEs than of large firms. These challenges illustrate why the expansion of digital payments must be accompanied by more effective pathways to enterprise finance.
FinTech offers several opportunities to address this gap. Digital transaction histories can help financial institutions understand business cash flows, identify patterns of sales and expenditure, and assess the repayment capacity of enterprises that lack conventional collateral. With appropriate consent, data protection and responsible credit assessment, these records could support lending decisions for businesses that might otherwise remain excluded from formal credit markets.
Consider a farmer whose sales are recorded digitally through an agricultural cooperative, or a market trader who regularly receives payments through a mobile wallet. Such records could provide evidence of business activity and cash flow that traditional lending assessments may overlook. A small manufacturer could similarly benefit from digital payments that establish a verifiable trading history and strengthen its case for working-capital finance.
Nevertheless, transaction data alone cannot eliminate the structural barriers facing small enterprises. Credit must be affordable, appropriately timed and linked to realistic repayment capacity. Agricultural businesses need financing that reflects seasonal production cycles, while manufacturers may require longer-term funding to acquire machinery and technology. Without these considerations, digital lending could simply make unsuitable debt easier to obtain.
FinTech must therefore be understood as an enabler of productive finance, not a substitute for sound credit assessment, effective enterprise support, reliable infrastructure and access to markets.
Reorienting Ghana’s financial architecture
To translate digital payment growth into productive investment, Ghana needs a more integrated financial architecture that connects payment systems with savings, credit, insurance and enterprise development. Banks, rural and community banks, mobile money operators, payment service providers, credit reporting institutions and relevant public agencies should work towards a system in which digital financial activity can support responsible access to a wider range of financial services.
The Bank of Ghana’s National Payment Systems Strategy 2025–2029 provides an important foundation for strengthening an inclusive, secure and interoperable payments ecosystem. The next policy priority should be to deepen the connection between this infrastructure and the financing needs of productive sectors.
Four areas deserve particular attention.
First, responsible digital credit for viable MSMEs should become a more deliberate priority. Financial institutions and FinTech firms can develop products that use verified transaction records to assess creditworthiness, while maintaining transparent pricing, appropriate affordability checks and effective consumer protection. Digital credit should help enterprises finance inventory, equipment and expansion rather than encourage repeated borrowing to meet everyday consumption needs.
Second, digital finance should be integrated more closely into agricultural value chains. Farmers and agribusinesses need more than convenient payment channels. They require access to seasonal credit, agricultural insurance, input financing, reliable buyers and timely payments. Connecting digital payment records with cooperatives, aggregators, input suppliers and market arrangements could help financial institutions better understand agricultural cash flows and design financing around production cycles.
Third, public payments and procurement can help build the financial histories of productive enterprises. Where appropriate, digitising payments to farmers, small suppliers, contractors and beneficiaries of enterprise-support programmes can improve transparency and create verifiable records of economic activity. With clear rules on consent, data access and privacy, such records could help eligible enterprises demonstrate their trading history when seeking financial services. Digitisation, however, must not become a condition that excludes people who lack reliable connectivity, suitable devices or digital literacy.
Fourth, regulation must protect users while enabling innovation. The expansion of digital credit and data-driven financial services creates risks relating to fraud, excessive borrowing, opaque charges and misuse of personal information. A productive digital finance agenda must combine innovation with proportionate supervision, transparent lending practices, cybersecurity, effective complaints mechanisms and financial literacy. Trust is not peripheral to financial inclusion; it is one of its essential foundations.
These reforms require coordination among the Bank of Ghana, the Ministry of Finance, financial institutions, FinTech firms and agencies responsible for agriculture, enterprise development and digitalisation. Without such coordination, Ghana risks developing an advanced payment ecosystem that remains only weakly connected to the productive financing needs of its economy.
Measuring what financial inclusion actually achieves
Ghana’s financial inclusion agenda should also evolve in how it measures success. Account ownership, transaction volumes, transaction values and agent networks remain important indicators of access and usage. But they do not fully reveal whether digital finance is improving enterprise performance or strengthening the productive capacity of the economy.
A more comprehensive assessment should track whether MSMEs obtain suitable credit, whether farmers access finance at the right point in the production cycle, whether businesses invest in equipment and technology, and whether firms survive, expand sales, improve productivity and create sustainable jobs. These indicators should be disaggregated by gender, location, enterprise size and economic sector to identify which groups are benefiting and which remain underserved.
This does not mean that payment access and convenience are unimportant. They reduce transaction costs, facilitate trade and help households manage their finances. Rather, the distinction is between financial inclusion that enables transactions and financial inclusion that expands productive opportunity. Both matter, but they should not be treated as interchangeable outcomes.
A payment system may be highly efficient while viable enterprises continue to struggle to secure investment capital. Equally, digital finance may improve productivity indirectly by reducing delays, increasing transparency and enabling businesses to participate in wider markets. Sound evaluation must therefore examine not only the immediate use of digital services but also their contribution to longer-term economic outcomes.
The next frontier
Ghana should build on its digital payment achievements to mobilise savings, reduce information barriers, improve risk assessment and connect underserved enterprises to appropriate financial services. The objective is not to diminish the importance of mobile money or payment innovation, but to extend their economic value.
This requires a shift in policy emphasis: from measuring how much money moves digitally to examining how digital finance supports investment, production and enterprise development. It also requires recognising that technology alone cannot resolve the underlying constraints facing businesses. Affordable capital, sound regulation, reliable infrastructure, market access and capable institutions remain indispensable.
Ultimately, financial inclusion should be judged not only by how easily money moves, but also by what that financial access enables people and businesses to achieve. If Ghana can translate its digital payment success into greater investment, stronger enterprises, higher productivity and more sustainable employment, FinTech will have moved beyond facilitating transactions to becoming a meaningful instrument of economic transformation.
That is Ghana’s next financial inclusion challenge—and an opportunity the country cannot afford to overlook.
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