Our Story

Where We Started

Afro-Arab Microfinance opened in Accra in 2011 with a simple idea: that the traders, farmers and small business owners the larger banks were not reaching were perfectly good customers, if someone was willing to go and meet them.

Fifteen years later that is still how the business runs. Our officers go out to markets, shops and farms rather than waiting behind a counter, and most of our clients came to us through someone who was already banking with us.

We started with one office and a handful of accounts. Today we are a Tier 2 deposit-taking institution licensed by the Bank of Ghana, holding savings for thousands of people who had never held an account anywhere before, and lending to businesses that grew because someone finally said yes.

What has not changed is how we decide. A loan here is still a judgement about a person and their trade, made by an officer who has stood in their shop and seen the stock on the shelves.