Doing well by doing good- marketing strategy to help the poor: The case of commercial banks in Ghana

Abstract

Access to capital markets and loans continues to be difficult for the poor in Ghana, even as the economic conditions improve and banks realize record profits. The insistence of commercial banks on collaterals as a loan requirement, to a large extent, disqualifies the poor in Ghana. Using a review of the literature, interviews with bankers, chiefs, a queen mother and the poor, and drawing on the theories of social marketing, the broadening of the marketing concept and the content analysis research technique, this study proposes a framework for a marketing strategy that uses the local social structures in lieu of collaterals that commercial banks in Ghana could use to extend loans to the poor. © 2009 Palgrave Macmillan.