Despite the improving macroeconomic environment, the general posture towards enterprise credit continues to remain conservative, for better or for worse. More than that, the structure of credit remains unchanged for the most part. According to data from the Bank of Ghana, commerce and finance sectors continue to receive a significant proportion of private sector credit, as compared to other primary sectors, specifically agriculture and manufacturing. This complaint is almost trite, a platitude to be rebutted by counter arguments that cite lack of infrastructure, market uncertainty and pricing volatility as key sources of supply chain risks that constrain output growth in the primary sectors. Sound arguments, undoubtedly, but there is another worldview. Traditional finance has been slow to capture change signals that point to new markets taking shape in other sectors of the economy. Take, for instance, music publishing. According to a report by Price Waterhouse Coopers (Entertainment & Media Outlook, 2017-2021), Ghana’s music industry, by 2016, was worth an estimated USD 6 million and forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 11.7 per cent by 2021. The revenue streams include primary sales (store and digital), event receipts, brand endorsements and other corporate gigs. Albeit still plagued with a lot of supply chain inefficiencies, the value opportunities remain immense. At its inflexion point, the attitude of captains in the finance sector was dismissive. “Oh, let’s just stay away, it’s too risky” was the popular refrain at credit and investment committee meetings. As a result of this obsolete worldview, several economic spaces remain uncontested and are indeed begging for innovative disruption.
Another example is the ride-hailing market. Take Uber, for instance. The visionary founders envisioned a new world where the latent capacity of assets owned by independent contractors could be pooled onto a platform for use by others at a fee. A new business model was born. It was vision, imagination and the audacity to embrace unorthodoxy that birthed a new order in transportation. It is the same vision, imagination and audacity that would help create new value propositions to serve the varying needs of various participants in a gig economy enabled by tech platforms. Enterprise Insurance is one such visionary brand that has creatively responded to this new dynamic with insurance products specifically for Uber driver-partners. This is the kind of bold new leadership that is needed in financial services. Thus far, traditional finance has been stymied by organisational inertia and a worldview that fails to recognise new financing opportunities in a rapidly changing environment.