Financial Services

Global economic growth is greatly influenced by the immense benefits agriculture adds to the growth of the economy. However, the robustness of the sector is strongly backed by the availability of adequate financial support.

Although many people are engaging in farming, the agricultural sector in Ghana and Africa at large is experiencing a lot of challenges and constraints in terms of financial assistance and the decline of investors’ interest to invest in the sector. Sometimes financial institutions are reluctant to accept the risks present in the agricultural sector, such as droughts, floods, pests, and diseases, or the transaction costs of covering large geographical distances and thus result in backing out in providing support to farmers and even large-scale processors.

Many farmers have vast arable farmlands but are not able to fully gain the benefits from their hard labour. It can however be said that financial constraints contribute to farmers engaging in subsistence farming and some experiencing post-harvest losses due to lack of finances to indulge in value-addition.  

TIAST Group has identified this problem and as part of its turnkey project, Financial Support will be available to farmers and entrepreneurs who want to enter agro-processing, especially for the cassava industry to boost the entire value chain.

With the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) TIAST has partnered with Stanbic Bank to provide financial support for all farmers, entrepreneurs, investors, corporate institutions and individuals who want to go into cassava starch processing.

Currently, Stanbic Bank provides a financial leasing of 70% – 80% of the total cost of the cassava processing factory. The client is responsible to provide 20% -30% per cent of the total cost as equity. TIAST guarantees the loan; hence there is no need for the provision of collateral by a client.