The numbers behind the banks: Ghana’s 2025 financial story

A patient came into my exam room and stared at the floor. His blood pressure was rising, his sleep was deteriorating, and his general health had been declining steadily for six months.

Following my private preview of the forthcoming Ghanaian feature film Zjili: A Story of Sisterhood & The Burdens of Excess —a film produced by The Or Foundation that is premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival — I toured the foundation's operations in Accra.

Behind the polished job advertisements crowding Ghana's newspapers and news sites lies a quieter, more cynical machine — one that exists not to hire, but to be seen to have tried.

Picture this. A bus breaks down on the Accra-Kumasi Highway for the third time this month. A radio host calls the transport company's manager and asks, "Isn't it true your buses are simply not roadworthy?"

Since the massive recent flooding in the Greater Accra region, I usually get asked which area I consider the best balanced to invest in considering pricing, social and economic infrastructure and the areas with the least legal and security risks. In sum where can buy land in Accra for a solid return on investment while also creating social value. I got chatting with a few friends online and you are invited to the consume the findings. Have a seat.

In today's rapidly evolving financial ecosystem, financial inclusion can no longer be measured simply by the number of people who own bank accounts.

Ghana's banking clean-up exposed a long list of failures: weak lending standards, related-party transactions, poor oversight and, in some cases, bank resources finding their way into businesses connected to owners and directors.

Every important financial innovation eventually raises the same question.