Ghana's rural banking sector has grown into a GHS26bn ($2.2bn) industry with 147 licensed institutions serving more than 8mn customers, Bank of Ghana Governor Johnson Asiama said, Citi News reported on July 17.

The figures land as the central bank overhauls a 50-year-old financial inclusion model widely studied across Africa, converting rural banks into community banks and taking the concept into cities for the first time.

"What began with one bank at Nyakrom is today 147 licensed institutions, about 1,000 branches, more than 8mn customers, and an asset base of approximately GHS26bn as of May this year," Asiama said at a ceremony at the central bank's Bank Square headquarters in Accra on July 16 marking the anniversary of the Rural Banking Programme.

The programme began in 1976, when Nyakrom Rural Bank in the Central Region became Ghana's first community-owned bank. Three more rural banks were licensed within a year, at Bawjiase, Bisease and Asiakwa, and the network went on to finance smallholder agriculture, mobilise savings and channel payments to cocoa farmers through the Ghana Cocoa Board's Akuafo Cheque scheme.

Asiama said the initiative filled a gap left by commercial banks, which failed to reach farmers, traders and rural residents. "People saved. People borrowed. People built. They simply did it without a bank because there was no appropriate bank for them to do it with," he said.

The sector's numbers "are not a measure of institutional success. They are a verdict on the original idea," he added.

The governor acknowledged governance weaknesses that damaged depositor confidence in some communities and said community ownership could not excuse weak controls. The reforms will allow community banks in urban centres, where he said high fees, strict documentation and unsuitable products still exclude small businesses and traders despite the spread of mobile money.

Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson, in a speech read on his behalf, said a GHS5bn ($424mn) bond issued in March was the first phase of a plan to restore the Bank of Ghana's balance sheet by 2032.