By Sandra Agyeiwaa OTOO
The Head of Women Banking at Stanbic Bank Ghana, Marian Amartey, has stated that the main barrier to finance for women entrepreneurs is not access to funds, but their readiness to qualify for support.
She made this statement on the side-lines of the 3rd edition of the Women in Business (WIB) Dialogue Series held in Kumasi. It was organised by the Business and Financial Times (B&FT) in partnership with Ecobank Ghana.
Focused on inclusive growth, the event themed “Building market leaders: empowering women-led SMEs and agribusiness for inclusive and sustainable growth” seeks to strengthen women and youth-led agribusinesses through financial access and entrepreneurship.
“As much as that has been the prevailing narrative, we at Stanbic believe that access to funding is not the problem. The challenge is ensuring that women are bankable and ready to be onboarded to expand their products and services. This is what the bank seeks to address through our ‘Obaa Sima’ products,” she explained.
She added that many women-owned businesses lack proper registration, documentation and governance systems, making it difficult for banks to onboard them and extend financial services.
Under its ‘Obaa Sima’ initiative, the bank supports women at different stages of their business journey. This includes helping unregistered businesses formalise, assisting those with inactive records to become compliant and supporting active businesses that are not growing.
The programme also focuses on capacity building. Through its incubator, women receive training in financial literacy, bookkeeping and financial management to strengthen their operations.
According to Mrs. Amartey, digital skills training is another key area, especially for women who rely mainly on mobile money but lack knowledge of broader digital platforms.
“We’re also looking at digital training. There are some women out there who make use of mobile money but when it comes to other digital platforms, they lack the knowledge. Stanbic has opened its door to extend such services and skills to these women as well,” she stated.
She added that the bank offers non-collateral loans to women who meet the required standards, removing a major barrier to accessing credit.
“Our current loan product is non-collateralised. Provided you meet the requirements, you do not need collateral to access it. We developed this with women in mind,” she said.
She emphasised that improving readiness will enable more women to access credit to grow sustainable businesses.
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