President Akufo-Addo has disclosed that Ghana has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) to secure a $200 million facility for on lending to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Speaking on day one of the 3i Africa Summit, the president disclosed that the Finance Minister signed the MoU on behalf of Ghana on Friday May 10, 2024.

“In furtherance of our objective of providing financial access to SMEs, the Minister for Finance and president of EBID signed last Friday in Togo, a MOU for 200 million dollar facility to disbused though the Ghana Commercial Bank and the Ghana EXIM Bank to SMEs”, he said.

President Akufo-Addo reiterated government’s commitment to fund the operations of SMEs at lower interest rate to sustain their operations.

Addressing the gathering earlier, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison called for more investment in Africa's fintech space.

According to Dr. Addison, the move will accelerate the rate of development and innovation.

He explained that the industry's potential largely depends on this issue and the ability for start-ups to access capital.

"...The lack of requisite Investment in African fintechs could slow the pace of innovation and scalability of solutions in achieving the desired impact of a digitized Africa," he said.

The 3i Summit

The event seeks to generate greater momentum and traction for Africa’s digital finance agenda by causing finance, policy and technology to meet at the crossroads has started at the Accra International Conference Centre for the next three days.

In the face of higher-than-projected registration characterised by a subsequent turnout of over 4,000 participants which is well above the initial target of 2,500, the organisers, the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Development Bank Ghana (DBG) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) through its subsidiary, Elevandi, remain poised to deliver what they promised.

Over the three days, the participants will benefit from a multimodal forum for policy discussions, international intellectual resource alignment, entrepreneurial pursuits and investment networking. This is expected to foster important conversations and also strategic alliances to nurture the flourishing African digital economy and fintech sector. Through this coordinated effort the Summit will support the development of creative solutions made especially to handle Africa's unique problems and take advantage of its wealth of prospects.

As expected, the 3i Africa Summit is bringing together key players in the financial, investment, policy-regulatory and digital technology domains in Africa. These includes 3 Heads of State, 10 Governors of Central Banks within and outside Africa including the Bank of Ghana’s Dr. Ernest Addison, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Dr. Olayemi Michael Cardoso and the National Bank of Rwanda’s Hon. John Rwangombwa. In addition, there are over 150 Chief Executives and Senior Executives of FinTechs and Financial institutions across the globe including Serigne Dioum, CEO of MTN Group Fintech[AB1] , Dr. Patrich Saidu Contech, CEO of Africa Fintech Network, Saurav Bhattacharya, CEO of Proxtera, Conrad Kraft, Strategic Advisor, DigitalEuro Association, and Co-Founder and CFO, Tradelite Solutions, Mariame MacIntosh Robinson, President of Qenta Inc., Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer at MAS.

Over the three days, the participants will engage in over 15 sessions with speakers and discussants contributing to over 60 topics aimed at finding the pathways that deliver the most traction in the drive to generate momentum and achieve progress in line with the Summit’s theme, “Unleashing Africa’s Fintech and Digital economic potential”. The exciting series of sessions include “the Capital meets Policy Dialogue”, “Opening; Main Stage” on Day One with “Main Stage – Africa”, “Fintech for inclusion forum”, “3i Africa Dialogues on Digital Assets”, “Founders’ Peak”, “the Deal Zone”, “Women in Tech Conference”, “Agriculture and Fintech Forum” and “Roundtable” on the second day. The third and final day offers “Smart SMEs and Digital Skills Forum”, “Digital Public Infrastructure”, “ESG Forum”, “Financing businesses, Accelerating Trade; Universal Trusted Credentials” and “Main Stage – Global”.

The topics for the three days will engender a dissection of the issues in order to bring to the fore solutions, ideas and channels to deliver the much-needed progress on the fintech front. These include “Interoperability of data; Digitalizing intra-Africa Trade”, “State of Fintech; Africa”, “Africa’s Digital Economic Policy; Incentives, Infrastructure, Financing and Regulations”, “Skilling up, Stepping up; Building Africa’s workforce with women and youth at the forefront”, “Sheconomics; Building a financial future for women with fintech”, “Seeding Innovation; The convergence of agriculture and fintech in Africa”, “Integrating fintech to de-risk agriculture value-chains in Africa”, “Africa’s Digital Renaissance; Unlocking talent and digital skills for the future of finance”, “Empowering SMEs; Closing the skills gap with practical education”, “the Wholistic Advantage of Digital + ESG; The winning formula for modern SMEs”, “Financing Digital Infrastructure; Financing Strategies for African Digital Public Infrastructure (DPIs)”, “Transition to our future; Green Fintech – ESG Solutions for businesses and individuals”, “Empowering Africa’s MSMEs; The game-changing impact of the Universal Trusted Credentials Framework in plugging the SME’s Finance Gap” and “Fintech and the creative arts economy”.

One thing is certain, however, that the 3i Africa Summit is not going to be a talk-shop. The discussions, views and solutions over the three days will be packaged as recommendations, collaborative deals, progressive policies and projects to enable the unleashing of Africa’s fintech and economic potential. This will be shared with the rich assemblage of leaders in the finance, policy and digital technology space for implementation thanks to the efforts and commitment of the Bank of Ghana, Development Bank Ghana and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.