Products and Impacts

The core product of SFF is a medium term revolving line of credit of typically
GH¢300,000. At the end of December 2008 cumulative revolving loans of over
GH¢13million had been advanced by SFF mainly to the rural bank sector. The client banks of SFF have shown above average growth in their lending portfolios and their number of clients both depositors and borrowers.

Case in Point

Small enterprises win

Since 2004 over 20,000 mostly micro and small sized enterprises, the majority of which were female owned, have benefited from the matched credits provided to them by the SFF participating financial institutions. Both the banks and the enterprises supported by SFF have demonstrated greater than average growth in term size and sustainability over that period.

SFF also offers a Developmental Loan of up to GH¢100,000 for smaller and less strong MFIs. This Developmental Loan is provided in close cooperation with the SPEED component 2, Technical Assistance for micro finance institutions. The purpose of this product is to facilitate the introduction of early-stage expansion of organised microfinance group lending by applicant banks. SFF lending will be linked to on site technical assistance to support the development of institutional capacity and operational structures. One key objective is to broaden and deepen the product range to increase both deposit mobilisation and lending activity.

The third SFF product is a Term Loan over three to five years for existing rural bank clients. The purpose of this loan is to retire these typically larger banks from the revolving credit facility and to thereby in turn facilitate the widening of SFF activity on a national basis to the relatively smaller rural banks otherwise unable to access wholesale funding.