Queen Máxima meets Bank of Ghana over 22% financial health gap

Accra is the centre of a royal visit with a blunt message for Ghana this week. Queen Máxima of the Netherlands is in the country as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Financial Health, and the Bank of Ghana reports that it will host her on 4 and 5 November 2026 for talks on how ordinary households manage money.

The visit matters because Ghana presents a puzzle. GhanaGuardian reports that the Bank of Ghana describes the country as one of Africa’s leading digital financial inclusion success stories, with 81 per cent of adults holding a financial account. Yet the Royal House of the Netherlands notes that a 2021 FinScope study found only 22 per cent of adults in Ghana were financially healthy, while 44 per cent were merely coping and 34 per cent were financially vulnerable.

That gap between having an account and being financially secure is the heart of the visit. Financial health, as the United Nations advocate’s office defines it, means being able to meet daily expenses, absorb an unexpected shock, invest in future goals and build confidence about money. An account on a phone does not by itself deliver any of those things, and the Queen’s programme is built around finding out why.

The Bank of Ghana reports that Queen Máxima will hold a bilateral meeting with the Governor, Dr Johnson Pandit Asiama, and that the two sides will co-host a Roundtable on Financial Health. Senior representatives from banks, electronic money issuers, payment service providers, insurance companies, pension providers, regulators and development partners are expected at the roundtable.

GhanaGuardian reports that the roundtable will discuss how Ghana measures financial health and how the country can encourage innovation in savings, responsible credit, insurance, pensions and investment. The role of the workplace in supporting employees, and the need for collective action across the financial sector, will also feature in the discussions.

The Royal House itinerary shows that the Bank of Ghana engagements are spread across the visit. On Wednesday 4 November, Queen Máxima is due to meet chief executives of financial institutions at the Bank of Ghana to discuss building financial health into the services customers receive, and to talk at the World Bank office about long-term saving and pensions, including for informal sector workers.

On Thursday 5 November, the itinerary puts a meeting with Governor Asiama at the Bank of Ghana, followed by a meeting with President John Dramani Mahama at Jubilee House and a national event organised by the Ministry of Finance on a strategy for financial inclusion and financial health, where the Queen will join a fireside chat.

The wider visit, which runs from 2 to 5 November, has already taken the Queen beyond Accra’s boardrooms. The Royal House reports that on Tuesday 3 November she visited a farm and a dried fruit factory in the Upper West Akim District, speaking with farmers and factory workers about crop insurance, salary advances, long-term saving schemes and pensions, and later met women entrepreneurs in an Accra market who manage their finances through a fintech app.

In the afternoon of Wednesday, she is due to travel to Kumasi to pay a courtesy visit to the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, and his wife, Lady Julia Osei Tutu, before a roundtable on financial health with several Ashanti chiefs.

The Bank of Ghana said the visit comes at an important moment for Ghana and that improving financial health is the next stage of the country’s financial inclusion journey, building on progress in access to accounts and digital services. For households, the test of the visit will not be the meetings themselves, but whether banks, insurers and pension providers change what they offer in the months that follow, so that the 81 per cent who hold accounts can join the 22 per cent who are genuinely financially healthy.

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