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The Bank of Ghana (BoG) will soon announce a new deadline for all Savings and Loans Companies to meet the new minimum capital requirement of GH�15.0 million. Dr Henry Kofi Wampah, BoG Governor, in a speech read on his behalf by Mr Stephen Amegashie, Assistant Director at the Governor�s Department during the launch of ABii National Savings and Loans Limited in Accra at the weekend, urged the shareholders to put a plan in place to meet the revised capital requirement. He said it was estimated that there were 2.5 billion adult people worldwide who did not have access to formal financial services. The Governor said according to the World Bank�s Global Findex Surveys, almost 80 per cent of those living on incomes of less than $ 2 per day were financially excluded. He noted that in Ghana, the empirical evidence was that over 60 per cent of the adult population was unbanked; this he said showed that there was room for ABii National to contribute its quota to the financial landscape in Ghana. �As a country, we have over the years been saddled with the challenge of evolving strategies for poverty reduction by raising incomes of low income households and broadening access to financial markets. �The formal banking system in developing economies such as ours tends to ignore the low end of the market which it perceives as risky and unviable. �This has prevented banks from making inroads into that segment of the market. However, this provides a fertile market for institutions like ABii National Savings and Loans to capture,� Dr Wampah said. He said the entry of ABii National into the financial service industry of Ghana would obviously increase the existing competition to the betterment of customers. Dr Wampah said the needs and demands of modern day customers were totally different from that of a decade ago, and satisfying these sophisticated needs require different approaches without exposing the company to avoidable risks. Mr Cassiel Ato Forson, Deputy Minister for Finance in a speech read on his behalf by Mr. Joseph Chognuru, a Director at the Ministry, said the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector was very critical to the accelerated economic development and growth agenda of the country. He said the SME sector not only dominates the business sector, but was also a leading contributor to employment, estimated at about 60 per cent of total employment. He said available data indicated that about 90 per cent of companies registered are micro, small and medium enterprises, declaring that this target group has also been identified as the catalyst for economic growth. He therefore, urged all non-banking financial institutions, particularly ABii National Savings and Loans to assist these enterprises by making credit more affordable and accessible.