BoG must facilitate productive-sector financing — or enable a specialized value-chain industrial bank

🇬🇭 Here's What Happened

Ghanaian banks are lending again, but where the money goes could determine whether the 24-Hour Economy delivers an industrial transformation or merely fuels another cycle of consumption and imports.

Total bank advances jumped 38.6 percent to GH¢124.3 billion in June 2026, from GH¢89.7 billion a year earlier, while private-sector credit expanded 41.2 percent. Yet the structure of lending shows that the productive sectors expected to drive the 24-Hour Economy continue to receive relatively small shares of private-sector credit.

At the end of 2025, manufacturing received about GH¢11.8 billion, or 11.1 percent, of outstanding private-sector credit, while agriculture, forestry and fisheries received just GH¢4.8 billion, or 4.5 percent. Commerce and finance accounted for approximately GH¢17.6 billion, while the broader services sector received about GH¢39.5 billion.

📌 Key Details

This allocation becomes increasingly important as falling interest rates change where banks deploy their money.

The average lending rate declined from 27 percent in June 2025 to 15.64 percent in June 2026, while the 91-day Treasury bill rate dropped from 14.74 percent to 5.27 percent.

With government securities offering significantly lower returns, banks have a stronger incentive to search for alternative earning assets.

The danger is that capital could increasingly migrate into consumer loans, personal credit and short-term commercial financing while farms, factories, processors and exporters continue to struggle for appropriately structured capital.

Ghana could then achieve macroeconomic stability without achieving productive transformation.

A factory operating additional shifts requires more than workers. It needs raw materials, working capital, machinery, energy, packaging, inventory, logistics and distribution finance.

📰 Source: Joy Online Ghana