Ghana’s small and medium-sized enterprises find themselves at a pivotal crossroads as the collapse in Treasury bill yields reshapes commercial banking incentives, but financial experts warn that opportunity will not come automatically for businesses that remain poorly organised.
For years, Ghana’s banking sector faced sustained criticism for deploying customer deposits into high-yielding government securities rather than lending to businesses, a model that required little risk and produced strong margins but starved the private sector of credit. That calculation is now shifting fast.
The 91-day Treasury bill rate has fallen to 4.82 percent, down from 28.03 percent at the end of 2024, with headline inflation standing at 3.3 percent in February 2026, leaving real returns on the instrument at less than 1.5 percentage points. The era of effortless, risk-free returns from government paper is effectively over.
The Ghana Reference Rate (GRR), the benchmark commercial banks use to price loans, dropped from 14.58 percent in February to 11.71 percent in March 2026, a move analysts say could trigger the most significant reduction in lending rates since the post-crisis recovery. Average commercial bank lending rates currently stand between 21 and 22 percent, still roughly double the new benchmark.
The direction, however, is unambiguous. Bank of Ghana (BoG) Governor Johnson Asiama has publicly committed to pushing average lending rates down to 10 percent before his tenure ends, describing the target as essential for unlocking stronger private sector growth.
For small and medium enterprises (SMEs), that trajectory presents a genuine opening. But analysts caution that banks will not simply open the floodgates. With the country’s non-performing loan ratio standing at approximately 18 percent, well above comparable economies in the sub-region, banks are under pressure to price risk carefully. Institutions must protect depositors’ funds and maintain strong balance sheets, meaning they will prioritise businesses that demonstrate discipline, credibility, and clear growth potential.
SMEs, which the government’s 24-Hour Economy Policy is designed to support, face borrowing costs that remain prohibitive for productive investment but are improving at a pace that analysts describe as cautious and credible.
In practical terms, businesses that stand to benefit most will be those that are financially organised, transparent, and professionally managed. Proper accounting and consistent record-keeping remain foundational. Banks want documented evidence of revenues, expenses, and profitability before committing funds. Sound cash flow management is equally critical, since a profitable business can still collapse, and fail a lender’s scrutiny, if inflows and outflows are poorly controlled.
Corporate governance, even in basic form, is increasingly expected of smaller enterprises. Clear management structures and transparent decision-making processes signal to lenders that a business can be trusted with capital. Entrepreneurs must also develop realistic business plans backed by credible financial projections. Collateral documentation, covering land, buildings, or equipment, remains a hard requirement at most institutions. Beyond the numbers, reputational integrity matters. Financial institutions are consistently more comfortable lending to businesses led by individuals known for responsible management.
The critical test for the broader environment will come in 2026 and 2027, when Ghana faces domestic and external debt repayments of GH₵20 billion and GH₵50.3 billion respectively. If the government is forced to borrow aggressively at home to meet those obligations, the crowding-out pressure that drove T-bill rates to 35 percent in 2022 could return.
The window is open. Whether individual SMEs are positioned to step through it depends almost entirely on the discipline they have built before the door widens.
