The Central Bank, in collaboration with other partners is set to enroll all microfinance institutions unto a single software by close of the year to ensure transparency in the management of data in the sector.
The move, according to the Head of the Microfinance Examinations Office of the BoG, Patience Yeboah-Nkansah, is to ensure that MFIs process and submit accurate data to the regulator without any difficulty.
She indicated that the major challenge the Central Bank has with MFIs is the inconsistencies associated with MFIs submitting data to the BoG, which would be addressed once the initiative is deployed.
She said this in an interview with the B&FT on the sideline of the 8th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Ghana Microfinance Institutions Network (GHAMFIN) held in Kasoa last week.
“Before we issue licenses, we look at the institution’s management information systems and any other things that is needed to process data. However, some of these institutions refuse to maintain the systems once they are in full operation, and so when it is time to submit data to the regulator, it becomes a problem.”
This is the major challenge we have. One, they will not submit and if you force them to submit, some of them will submit wrong data and so the BoG with some other partners is developing a new software free of charge to help in their data management and submission.
By the end of this year, we would hook them all on this new software to ensure uniformity and to curb several other network challenges for their own benefit.”
The exercise, Mrs. Yeboah-Nkansah said, is one of several measures by the Central Bank to restore confidence in the microfinance sector, which has faced a lot of challenges for some time now, saying: “This is one means- getting them the necessary tools to enable them to submit data in an accurate, timely, and efficient manner such that we can analyse and help the institutions to remain sustainable.”
She therefore urged MFIs to be transparent and truthful with the data they submit to the regulators, and in their operations, and implored customers and the general public to see the microfinance sector as a great too for economic development, adding: “What I’m telling Ghanaians who have lost their monies through a few microfinance institutions that microfinance is not a bad animal as they think. It is a very good tool if it is used well.
This year’s GHAMFIN meeting was held under the theme: ‘Data Transparency; A key factor for Microfinance Sector Growth’, and seeks to incorporate in the sector, technology and changing trends that will improve data handling processes and hence, grow the industry.
B&FT