A loan app will lend you a few hundred cedis against nothing but your Ghana Card and your phone. Some are licensed lenders; many have not been. Since the Bank of Ghana’s Directive for Digital Credit Service Providers of September 2025, every business lending through an app or USSD code needs a licence from the Bank of Ghana, and the deadline for existing apps to get one passed on 30 June 2026.

Since then the Bank has published list after list of loan apps operating without a licence - twenty at a time, in August, September and October 2026 - and told banks and mobile money providers not to process payments for them. It says such apps violate customers’ data privacy and consumer protection rules.

Before you install one

  1. Check the Bank of Ghana’s list of licensed digital credit providers on its website, https://www.bog.gov.gh. If the app is not there, or is on one of the Bank’s lists of unlicensed apps, do not use it.
  2. Search the name with “Bank of Ghana”. The unlicensed lists are widely reported, and an app renamed after being listed often keeps a similar name.
  3. Look at the permissions it asks for. An app that wants your contacts, photos or call log is asking for something a lender does not need to decide on a loan, and is how illegal apps shame borrowers.

— Checking a financial firm is licensed

Before you borrow

Read the screen that shows the loan, and write down:

  • The amount you receive, after any fee taken at the start
  • The amount you repay, and the date
  • What happens if you are a day late: the late fee and how it grows

Divide what you repay by what you receive. On a short loan, a fee that looks small is a very high rate for the weeks you have the money. Borrowing from one app to repay another is how a small loan becomes a debt you cannot see the end of.

Licensed lenders report to the credit bureaus, so missing a payment can follow you to a bank loan later. Paying on time builds a record that helps.

— Your credit report

If an app harasses you

Illegal apps are known for messaging a borrower’s contacts, calling them debtors, and sending threats. None of that is lawful debt collection.

  1. Keep everything: screenshots of messages, call logs, the app’s name and the loan screen.
  2. Report an unlicensed app to the Bank of Ghana at digitalcredit@bog.gov.gh, or through its complaints line, 0593974486.
  3. Report the misuse of your contacts and data to the Data Protection Commission. It has warned the public about loan apps and has acted against lenders that published borrowers’ names.
  4. Report threats to the police, or online abuse to the Cyber Security Authority.
  5. Revoke the app’s permissions in your phone’s settings, then uninstall it.

What you borrowed may still be owed. Repaying it ends the lender’s claim; it does not excuse what the app did.

— Your data rights — Complaining about a bank or MoMo provider

Cheaper ways to borrow

A bank or credit union loan, a salary advance from an employer, or a susu group costs less than an app for anything but a few days. If you are borrowing to pay for food or rent every month, an app will make it worse; talk to someone before you start.

— Mobile money — Online fraud in Ghana