The
Ghana Stock Exchange has lowered cost and introduced incentives to make the stock
market attractive to SMEs.
Investment
advisors are particularly entreating rural banks and microfinance companies to
turn to the Alternative market to access long term financing.
Yaa
Asantewaa Rural Bank, which started operations less than two years ago, has
expressed interest to go onto the market.
“The
alternative market gives us a brighter opportunity,” says Samuel Addo Otoo,
Board Chairman of the Bank. “We’ve opportunity and even gone beyond Ghana by
having interactions with institutions in South Africa and Dubai trying to bring
capital in; so if the opportunity is there for us to assess it locally, I think
it is a brighter time”.
The
Bank has the target of opening eight branches within the next five years, in
addition to the current two.
Mr.
Otoo believes the listing on the stock exchange would enable the bank quicken
its expansion drive.
He
however entreats the Ghana Stock Exchange to shorten the application process “and
also be able to come out with a way of making the process quite simple and
accessible by all institutions, especially start-ups that are viable to succeed
in the future”.
SMEs
with high growth potential can raise Gh250,000 minimum capital on the Ghana Alternative
Market.
Story
by Kofi Adu Domfeh
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