Financial sector heavyweights convene for The Money Summit 2026

Africa’s leading source of business information, the Business & Financial Times (B&FT), convenes The Money Summit 2026 (TMS26) in Accra today, bringing together some of the nation’s most senior financial sector voices to examine three of the most consequential questions confronting the economy at a pivotal moment in its post-crisis trajectory: the future of commodity-backed financing; mobilisation of long-term capital; and deepening financial inclusion through the rural banking sector.

The summit, themed ‘Building Trust, Capital, and Stability for Ghana’s Economic Future’, takes place at the Palms by Eagle Hotel and opens at 9:00 am with a keynote address by Matilda Asante-Asiedu, Second Deputy Governor-Bank of Ghana (BoG). It is the flagship policy convening of Ghana’s leading business newspaper -B&FT – and arrives at a moment of unusual economic significance.

Real GDP grew by 6 percent in 2025, up from 5.8 percent the previous year, while inflation declined from 23.8 percent for 2024 to 5.8 percent in 2025 and fell further to 3.4 percent as of April 2026. The cedi appreciated by more than 40 percent against the US dollar in 2025, with relative stability sustained into 2026.

Ghana’s three-year US$3billion IMF Extended Credit Facility has now been formally concluded, ushering the country into a new 36-month Policy Coordination Instrument – a transition widely regarded as marking Ghana’s return to sovereign fiscal management after one of the most turbulent economic episodes in its modern history.

Yet for many in the business community, the question is no longer how Ghana stabilised but whether the institutional foundations are in place to convert that stabilisation into durable, inclusive growth. That is the animating question behind today’s programme.

The first of three plenary sessions, moderated by veteran broadcaster Alfred Ocansey of TV3 Network, takes on what is arguably the most consequential structural shift of Ghana’s economic architecture in recent years: namely, the emergence of commodity-backed financing and institutional role of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod).

The Ghana Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140) mandates GoldBod to anchor a gold-backed reserve accumulation strategy, with Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson describing the policy target as the creation of an “economic war chest” to shield Ghana against commodity price shocks, global financing volatility, geopolitical tensions and climate-related disruptions.

In 2025 alone, GoldBod generated approximately US$10billion in foreign exchange at a cost of US$214million; significantly lower than the cost of comparable borrowing arrangements that contributed to Ghana’s 2022 debt distress.

The session will examine the systemic resilience implications of this model, including the regulatory architecture being developed to support it. The Securities and Exchange Commission  (SEC) is already collaborating with GoldBod to pilot gold-backed securities and tokenised gold assets under a regulatory sandbox framework; a development that places Ghana at the frontier of commodity-linked capital market innovation on the continent.

Panellists include Mensah Thompson, Deputy Director-General of the SEC; senior officials from the Bank of Ghana and Ghana Gold Board; and the Managing Director of Ecobank Ghana.

The second plenary shifts focus to what remains one of the most stubborn structural deficits in Ghana’s financial system – the underdevelopment of long-term capital markets and the country’s chronic reliance on short-term financing instruments.

This session, moderated by Winston Tackie of Multi-Media Group, features Abena Amoah, Managing Director-Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE); Paul Kofi Mante, Managing Director-EDC Investment Limited; Nana Yaw Owusu Banahene, Director at Stratgrowth Management Partners; and Dr. Richmond Kwame Frimpong, Advisory Board Chair of Financial Literacy Africa.

The session arrives at a moment of remarkable capital market momentum. GSE entered 2026 extending its 2025 momentum as Africa’s best-performing equity market, recording a 79.43 percent annual return in 2025 with the GSE Composite Index surging nearly 49 percent in the first quarter of 2026 alone – crossing the historic 15,000-point mark for the first time.

Market capitalisation on the exchange currently stands at GH¢262.9billion. The question this session seeks to answer is whether that rally reflects a structural deepening of Ghana’s capital markets or a cyclical re-rating; and what institutional reforms are needed to convert equity market momentum into a genuine long-term capital mobilisation engine for enterprise and infrastructure.

The third and final plenary, chaired by B&FT’s Ebenezer Chike Adjei Njoku, examines the financial inclusion agenda through the lens of Ghana’s rural and community banking sector. ARB Apex Bank Managing Director, Alex Kwasi Awuah, reported at the sector’s 24th Annual CEO Conference in 2025 that the RCB tier’s total assets in first-half of the year stood at   GH¢21.2billion, with deposits reaching GH¢18.2billion – a near-tripling from the GH¢6.71 billion in assets recorded for 2022. Sector profit before tax surpassed GH¢783million, more than double the GH¢361million recorded in mid-2024.

Yet that recovery coexists with a financial inclusion sphere still shaped more by mobile money than formal banking. Ghana’s financial inclusion now stands at 81 percent, up from 68 percent in 2021, with mobile money expansion identified as the central driver of that progress. Mobile money transactions reached GH¢493.2billion in April 2026 alone, with 967 million transactions processed during the month.

This session also takes place against the backdrop of a significant regulatory reform as BoG has directed all rural banks to convert into community banks under a Revised Microfinance Sector Framework that simultaneously expands ARB Apex Bank’s mandate as a central support institution across a broader range of deposit-taking categories.

Panellists include Samuel Gyimah Amoako, Head of Finance-ARB Apex Bank; Dr. Alex Asmah, CEO-Amenfiman Rural Bank; Alhaji Hayatudeen Awudu Ibrahim, CEO-BESSFA Rural Bank; Desmond Bredu, Head of Client Coverage-Stanbic Bank Ghana; Kingston Ocloo, Assistant Director and Head of Community Banks (formerly RCB) Office of Other Financial Institutions Supervision Department (OFISD) Bank of Ghana.

For Dr. Godwin Acquaye, CEO-Business & Financial Times Limited, TMS26 is intended to address the next challenge facing the economy: that is, how to convert recent gains in macroeconomic stability into sustained growth, stronger institutions and broader economic participation.

“Ghana has done the hard work of stabilisation. What this summit asks is the harder question: whether we have built the institutions, the markets, and the trust required to turn that stability into growth which reaches every Ghanaian. That is not a question for one sector. It is a question for all of us,” he said.

The summit, he noted, is designed to produce not only discussion but concrete, actionable recommendations that feed into the policy and regulatory conversations shaping Ghana’s financial sector in the months ahead.

Sponsors include Fidelity Bank…. Full coverage will be published across B&FT’s print and digital platforms.

The post Financial sector heavyweights convene for The Money Summit 2026 appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.

Read Full Story