NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

The Bank of Ghana says it has abandoned its initial plans to suspend the issuance of new operating licences to microfinance companies.

The regulator has so far licenced about 435 microfinance companies and it is seeking avenues to contain the sudden surge of MFCs.

Raymond Amanfu, Head of Other Financial Institutions Supervision Department at the central bank, early this year told the B&FT the regulator will freeze the issuance of new licences in order to make supervision less cumbersome.

“Honestly, we will put a cap on the licences at a certain point,” he said in the January interview. The central bank has already licenced over 435 microfinance companies and declined 120 applications, with over 200 more pending.

Speaking in an interview last week, Mr. Amanfu conceded that freezing issuance of licences is not the best of options.

“No longer issuing operating licences means that you are encouraging people to go underground again. But we have to manage it and make sure that those that are coming up meet the minimum capital requirement and have good human resource,” he said.