The Ghana Commodity Exchange and Barclays Ghana, a member of the Absa family, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate with each other in building a framework for the settlement of trades as well as the provision of financial services to exchange actors.
As part of this MOU, Barclays Ghana, the biggest lender to the Agriculture Sector in 2018, has agreed to collaborate with GCX in the Warehouse Receipt Financing Programme and be a Settlement Bank to Exchange Members.
The two institutions also agreed to collaborate to build the capacity of farmers in the country.
This now makes a total of eight (8) Financial institutional partners of GCX, all of whom have agreed in principle to work with the Exchange to develop new financing products for farmers and traders.
These financial institutions include Fidelity Bank, Zenith Bank, Apex Bank, ADB, ECOBANK, GCB Bank and Success for People Microfinance.
To achieve the goal of true development of the agricultural value chain and improve the lives of rural communities, greater access to financing and a diverse set of credit facilities is critical.
This will give Ghanaian farmers the working capital they need to sustain their business activities in between each harvesting season as well as give them greater purchasing power for seeds, fertilizers and other inputs.
These financial institutions are ready to accept warehouse receipts which represents agricultural products as the sole collateral for advancing short term loans to farmers.
Source: GCX