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Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has encouraged the financial institutions to up their financial inclusion drive - reach out and to capture the unbanked into the mainstream.

There needed to be a paradigm shift and increasing use of technology to rope-in the unbanked segment of the population.

That, he said, was critical to the acceleration of the government’s economic transformation agenda.

“We really need a paradigm shift in Ghana in the area of financial inclusion because what is clear is that we have many financial institutions but we still have a very large segment of our population unbanked.”

Vice President Bawumia was speaking at the launch of the 10th anniversary of Bond Savings and Loans PLC in Accra.

“When you look at the history of financial sector development in the more advanced countries it is very clear that financial inclusion was very critical in many countries - mobilised savings and therefore lower interest rates.”

"If you go back, whether you are looking at the 18th century’s Friendly Society Acts in Europe or others, this was a key matter and for us as a country, we have largely seen a lot of financial institutions but the depth in terms of coverage is not there.

This is why we really need this paradigm shift and the paradigm shift is going to come in terms of mindset but also to use technology that allows us to reach the unbanked in the population."

Vice President Bawumia applauded the role played by Financial Technology (Fintech) companies in the government’s digitisation agenda.

He said that represented a significant shift in the philosophy guiding national development, which had resulted in the implementation of a number of innovations - paperless port system, digital property address system, national identification programme and the recently launched mobile money interoperability payment system, as well as the upcoming digitisation of land records.

While commending the board, staff and management of Bond Savings and Loans for the achievements chalked over the last 10 years of existence, He challenged them to continue with their mission to expand the reach of financial services through technology to help include the financially excluded as well as bring a larger part of the population into the formal sector.