Diagnostic of Ghanaian bank and action plan

Genesis was engaged to provide technical advisory services to a bank in Ghana under the IFC's Africa Micro Small Medium Enterprise finance programme (AMSME).

Services rendered included a detailed analysis and diagnostic of the bank and the competitive environment in which it operated. This detailed diagnostic informed the scope of the technical assistance component of the engagement which lasted for 10 months. Genesis implemented and rolled out advisory services covering credit/risk management, product development, IT and MIS, HR and training.

The TA initiative comprised two distinct phases:

The inception phase involved a detailed assessment of the bank’s internal products, processes and capabilities as well as an in-depth analysis of the macroeconomic environment and competitive landscape in which the bank operates. This phase was originally due to run for a period of three to four months, but at the IFC’s request and through the concerted efforts of the team, it was completed within two months of the project’s kick-off.

The intention of this phase was to identify the bank’s shortcomings and opportunities that would be addressed through the TA initiative. The inception-phase analysis identified three work streams that required urgent attention from the bank in terms of improving its overall value proposition to SMEs in Ghana. The three work streams that were identified were: segmentation, organisational structure and sales, value proposition and overall improvements on how the bank capitalises on its data and systems.

The second phase of the TA initiative, the implementation phase, ran for one year because many of the initiatives identified (above) were of a long-term nature and should result in improvements for years to come. The implementation phase had also spurred a bank-wide change-management project that was driven by the TA team and which was broadened internally by the bank to include segments that were out of scope for the purposes of the TA initiative.

The project was deemed as a success by the IFC as well as the bank's executive committee and all actioned changes were implemented.