The Central Bank is expected to meet Microfinance firms over the increase in their minimum capital requirement today, Tuesday May 29.
The BoG in 2015 increased the minimum capital for microfinance companies from 500,000 cedis to 2 million cedis.
Data from the Central Bank indicates only 30 out of the 319 registered microfinance companies are in a position to meet the new requirement.
If that’s anything to go by, about 279 companies will soon collapse leading to the loss of thousands of jobs nationwide.
Executive Director of the Ghana Microfinance Institutions Network, Yaw Gyamfi says the nature of business with microfinance firms requires some form of consideration.
“Even though we are in the same field our business is more to the low income clients and I expect we should get more consideration. The fact is that at that lower level, GHC200 means a lot to a market woman and we are doing that kind of work at the lower level, preparing people to be more bankable. We are not at the same level playing field and I don’t expect that we have the same level of competition”.
In a related development, the Ghana Microfinance Institution Network is advising Quick credit Money lending Ltd to withdraw its case with the Central Bank from court. The firm has dragged the Bank to court for closing down some of its branches in the Ashanti Region.
Source: Ghana/StarrFMonline.com/103.5FM
