Elsie Addo Awadzi, Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), has urged policymakers and stakeholders in Africa’s financial inclusion ecosystem to prioritise policies and regulations that would unlock the continent’s digital economic potential.

She emphasised the necessity for financial inclusion to be integrated into the policy, regulations, and business modules of financial service providers, rather than considered a peripheral issue.

Speaking on the second day of the 3i Africa Summit 2024 in Accra, Mrs Awadzi stated that Africa should develop an enabling environment that promotes long-term inclusion, consequently extending financial access to the underserved and unserved.

She said that empowering the underserved should be a critical economic policy agenda because the concept of financial inclusion would improve people’s livelihoods, alleviate poverty, and advance economic development on the continent.

Over 6,000 attendees from 95 countries are participating in the three-day summit which seeks to explore and promote active collaboration between diverse stakeholder groups in key areas to drive innovation across Africa.

Mrs Awadzi noted that micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises are the bedrock of Africa’s economy, but they continue to lack access to substantial and cost-effective financing without equity and credit.

“It is important that as we think about how innovation can be a catalyst for inclusion. It must also be noted that innovation and investments only do not scale up inclusion, but policy and regulations promote access and transparent pricing for the underserved and unserved,” she said.

She stated that African countries must have clear and coordinated policies where educational, health, agricultural, industrial, and economic initiatives all speak to financial inclusion and work together to create an enabling environment for growth.

Mrs. Awadzi said that infrastructure was another critical component of financial inclusion, and the “key question is who does these investments in inter-IDs, interoperability, payment systems, financial literacy, credit reporting, and credit scoring programmes?”

“We need partnerships between the private and public sector to create these investments to promote access and cost-effective processes. We need to find ways of investing in coordinated databases; databases that speak to each other and allow us to understand what is going on within the ecosystem,” she added.

Mrs. Awadzi mentioned that in Ghana, the Bank of Ghana has issued a set of sustainable banking principles which require banks to operate inclusively and allow everyone in the ecosystem to think similarly about the interests of the unserved and underserved population.

She argued for metrics to assess impact, focusing on accounts, usage, and resilience in how economic actors handle risks.