- Women-Led Businesses Deserve Better Loan Pricing — BoG Deputy Governor
The Bank of Ghana has urged banks and other financial institutions to improve access to affordable credit for women-led businesses, arguing that women entrepreneurs are commercially viable customers with strong repayment behaviour and resilient business models.
Speaking at the 2026 Ghana Female CEOs Summit, Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Mrs Matilda Asante-Asiedu, said financial institutions must stop treating women entrepreneurs as a charitable group and begin recognising them as one of the most attractive market segments for credit and financial services.
“So to the financial institutions, stop treating women entrepreneurs as a charitable constituency and start treating them as the most commercially compelling segment,” she said.
Mrs Asante-Asiedu said women-led businesses have consistently demonstrated strong repayment records and prudent investment practices, making them reliable customers for banks and other lenders.
According to her, research and industry data show that women entrepreneurs tend to record lower loan default rates compared with many other customer groups, a performance that should influence how banks price risk and structure credit products.
“The women repay better, they invest more, they build wisely and they build resilient enterprises,” she added.
The Second Deputy Governor called on banks to design financial products that respond directly to the realities of women-owned enterprises, including affordable loans, better pricing terms and products that recognise consistent repayment histories.
She also urged lenders to reconsider the high-risk premiums often attached to loans for women entrepreneurs.
“In banking, apart from the Ghana Reference Rate, we add what we call the risk premium. But if you have a customer who repays consistently and invests the money back into the business, then giving them the right price means your business will continue to thrive,” she noted.
Her remarks come at a time when Ghana’s policy debate is shifting from macroeconomic stabilisation to real-sector recovery, private-sector expansion and job creation. Women-owned businesses remain central to that conversation because of their role in trade, services, agribusiness, manufacturing, household welfare and community-level employment.
For many women entrepreneurs, however, access to credit remains constrained by collateral requirements, high interest rates, limited financial records and risk perceptions that do not always reflect actual repayment behaviour.
Mrs Asante-Asiedu’s intervention therefore places pressure on financial institutions to use data more intelligently in lending decisions, rather than rely on blanket assumptions that classify women-owned businesses as high-risk.
The economic argument is straightforward: where women-led enterprises show strong repayment discipline and reinvestment behaviour, banks should reward them with more competitive pricing and tailored support.
The Deputy Governor also stressed that backing women-owned businesses has broader development benefits, including improved household welfare and stronger national economic growth.
For Ghana’s banking sector, the challenge is to convert inclusion rhetoric into credit policy. That means developing gender-responsive products, strengthening credit assessment tools, improving data on women-owned businesses, and ensuring that risk premiums reflect actual borrower performance.
If lenders respond, women entrepreneurs could become not only beneficiaries of financial inclusion, but an important driver of profitable and responsible credit growth.
