Development Bank Ghana

No. DBG operates a wholesale banking model, providing medium-to-long-term credit lines to commercial banks and other financial intermediaries, which then on-lend to eligible businesses in priority sectors. This structure is designed to leverage existing bank distribution networks while DBG focuses on tenor and sector risk that commercial banks typically avoid.

DBG was initially capitalized with support from the Government of Ghana, the European Investment Bank, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank. This blended capital base — mixing sovereign and multilateral development finance — allows the bank to offer below-market-rate facilities to its partner commercial banks.

DBG's mandate covers five pillars: agribusiness and agro-processing, manufacturing and light industry, information and communications technology, tourism, and housing construction. The bank has guidance to avoid short-term consumer credit and unproductive import finance, focusing instead on sectors that align with Ghana's industrial transformation agenda.

DBG has an independent board and a risk-management framework meant to meet commercial underwriting standards while fulfilling a public-policy mandate. Its funding model requires it to remain solvent and earn a return adequate to service its own borrowings, a departure from earlier Ghanaian state banks that administered subsidized credit without rigorous repayment discipline.

DBG does not originate loans to end-borrowers. Instead, partner commercial banks bring forward enterprises seeking term credit; DBG evaluates the bank's credit and the programmatic use of funds before approving a facility. This means deal flow depends on the depth of relationships with Ghana's commercial banking sector.