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Reference materials in the area of money and banking have ordinarily been lumped under the category of general reference books in economics and business. This is understandable because most of the required data can be obtained from books dealing with the latter. There are, however, numerous government and private sources which deal exclusively with banking and monetary statistics. This, coupled with their highly specialized character, justifies a separate treatment. We may being by examining a few directories, among which, Moody's Bank and Finance Manual is one of the better known and most widely used. Its coverage extends to banks, insurance and real estate companies, real estate investment trusts and miscellaneous financial enterprises. The section on banks gives the latest available accounts of nearly 3000 banks, with the history of the institution from the date of the charter, absorptions, capital history, dividend payments and price ranges. More than 3000 smaller banks are listed with essential details. The manual includes information on the chartered banks of Canada, the principal banks of England, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and South America. The insurance section covers all phases of insurance business, like underwriting and investment, assets and liabilities, gains and losses, and types of business written. Federal credit regulatory agencies such as the Federal Reserve System, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal National Mortgage Association, Federal Home Loan Bank Board and others are treated in considerable detail. As with the other Moody's manuals, the center section contains composite banking and monetary data such as a ten‐year range of banking stocks and bonds and lists of 300 largest banks, 100 largest mutual savings banks, 100 largest life insurance companies and 100 largest savings and loan associations. Also included are stock averages and distribution of assets and investments of insurance companies.

Traces the events which led up to the US savings and loan crisis. Discusses the role that the property appraiser played in the process. Concludes that the savings and loan crisis not only helped to identify chronic weakness and problems in the structure of the profession but also helped to solve those problems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of savings mobilization on access to credit among smallholder farmers’ in the Birim central municipality of Ghana.

A cross-sectional primary data set was used to estimate the factors influencing smallholder farmers’ access to credit and size of loan to be borrowed using the IV-Probit and IV-Tobit model.

The results of the study revealed that savings mobilization has a positive significant impact on access to credit and the total amount of credit one can borrow as well. Other control variables such as transaction cost and farm size depicted a negative significant impact on access to credit. Land ownership, member of an association, household size, years of farming experience and education also showed a positive significant impact on access to credit.

The paper only examined the savings effect on credit accessibility among smallholder farmers in one of the municipality’s in the Eastern region of Ghana. Future research should consider all or many municipality for an informed generalization of findings.

This paper provides evidence that smallholder farmers knowledge on the financial market is poor and it would require the policymakers or NGOs to organize financial management training programs so that the farmers high ignorance of the financial market will significantly reduce.

Although existing studies have examined smallholder farmers’ access to credit, the unique contribution of this paper is the analysis of the impact of saving mobilization on credit accessibility in Ghana, a major access to credit determinant in the financial market. In addition, those researchers who factored in savings as an access to credit determinant did not also consider the casual relationship between these two variables, thus, the present of endogeneity of which this paper does.

Some major segmentation issues in retail banking are examined. It is found that primary institutions are associated with frequency of visits and that it is usually a low involvement decision oriented towards convenience. It is also shown that financial services consumption is a product driven decision‐making process, further suggesting that more emphasis be put on product and multi‐institution usage research.

Microfinance which refers to the issuance of microloans and the delivery of other related financial services to mostly necessity entrepreneurs has remained a major developmental tool across the developing world. With its inception from Bangladesh’s village of Jobra in 1976, microfinance has provided financial capital to many poor households to engage in income-generating activities in order to increase their assets and reduce vulnerability. Most often than not, necessity entrepreneurs who endeavor to start their own businesses depend on microfinance as a source of financial resource into their Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs). Using Ghana as the study country, this study investigated the impact of microfinance on the necessity entrepreneurs in the areas of poverty reduction, employment generation as well as the various difficulties associated with Microfinance delivery in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. We conducted a paper-based survey with 378 MSE owners from this region. The results indicate that microfinance has contributed to employment generation and poverty reduction in the Greater Accra region of Ghana through the provision of microloans to necessity entrepreneurs to engage in various types of income-generating activities. However, necessity entrepreneurs are faced with loan inadequacy issues coupled with under-financing difficulties. More so, they are also faced with non-flexible loan terms and cumbersome loan application procedures which do not support business expansion and employment generation. This study contributes to the debate on the social logic concept of microfinance delivery and poverty reduction. Microfinance therefore remains an indispensable tool in supporting necessity entrepreneurs in promoting self-employment.

The purpose of this study was to understand the usefulness of financial institution class ties in small commercial poultry farms’ (SCPFs’) survival in Ghana.

The study uses data from a network survey with associated attribute data on poultry small- and medium-sized enterprises. The data were collected in two waves between January 2014 and March 2015. Survival is estimated using a lagged probit model.

It was found that the survival rate of SCPFs is influenced by ties to universal banks and cooperative credit unions that have a positive effect while those with ties to savings and loans companies have a reduced survival probability.

The findings of the study make a significant contribution to the agricultural enterprise financing literature showing the relevance of the different financial institution types in the continued survival of agricultural SCPFs.

The marginalisation of female entrepreneurs in accessing credit is well documented. Yet, how female entrepreneurs navigate through the marginalisation to gain funding is under-explored.

The authors address this gap using qualitative data from 30 female entrepreneurs in three neighbourhoods with varying socio-economic characteristics in Ghana's capital, Accra.

The authors find a marked aversion to bank loans among respondents. Consequently, they nurtured trust in their social circles in order to facilitate access to informal credit from internal (e.g. family and friends) and external (e.g. trade credit, associations and religious organisations) sources. This aversion to loans from formal financial institutions (FFIs) had a socio-cultural aspect, including cumbersome application procedures, a deep-rooted fear of the social consequences of defaulting and religious prohibition against interest payment for Islamic traders.

This paper shows that providing formal access to credit is not enough to support women's entrepreneurship if the socio-cultural factors inhibiting women's access to credit from FFIs are not addressed.

The findings suggest that trust is an important factor that bridges the gap in female entrepreneurs' access to funding given their heavy reliance on informal sources of funding.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-02-2023-0090

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of agricultural credit rationing by formal lenders in Ghana.

This study employed descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Heckman's two-stage regression model to identify types of rationing faced by farmers and investigate factors that influence agricultural credit rationing by formal financial institutions. Data used in this study are gathered through a survey of 595 farmers in seven districts within Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana.

The result reveals that farmers face three types of rationing. Evidence from the Heckman two-stage models shows that engagement in off farm income generating activities, increase in farm size, positive balances on accounts and commercial orientation of the farmers has the potential to reduce rationing of credit applicants by formal lenders.

The results provide information on the factors that need to be considered as important in an attempt to reduce agricultural credit rationing by formal lenders.

The value of this study is that farmers would use the results of this study to improve access to required amount of agricultural credit from formal financial institutions. The information would also benefit stakeholders in the agricultural sector, particularly youth in agriculture program organized by Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Ghana as how to improve access to credit and reduce rationing of program participants by formal financial institutions.

This paper aims to seek to ascertain the corporate social responsibility (CSR) information needs of customers of microfinance institutions (MFIs). It also ascertains their media preferences for CSR disclosure.

The study adapted Wilson’s (1981) concept of information needs as the conceptual basis of this study. Case study research design was used. The respondents consisted of customers of MFIs in Ghana. Semi-structured interview was used to collect the data. Data were analysed using thematic analysis technique.

The study found that the CSR information needs of MFIs’ customers relate to moral disclosure, business survival disclosure, financial and business terms and conditions disclosure, donations disclosure and capacity building and training disclosure. The study also found that family and friends are the most reliable sources of CSR information for MFIs’ customers.

There is a great deal of literature available on CSR disclosure. However, limited studies have investigated the information needs of customers regarding CSR disclosure. Again, CSR disclosure in the Microfinance sector has received limited attention in the existing literature. This study expanded the existing literature by investigating the CSR information needs of MFIs’ customers.

Consumers perceive the following criteria as important in their selection and patronage of commercial banking facilities. Services relating to chequing accounts are of greater importance than those relating to savings accounts. Speed of service, locational convenience, competence and friendliness of bank personnel are also important. Significant differences in attitudes and opinions between the sexes, language, age, income and educational level groups are revealed. These results come from a study carried out in Montreal, which was chosen for its highly competitive banking environment. By tailoring their marketing strategies to stress the satisfaction of the above features, bank marketers may be better able to influence the target market segments dealt with.