The Bank of Ghana has called on stakeholders in the financial sector to intensify collaborative efforts aimed at promoting a safe financial service industry.
The Head of Fintech and Innovation at the Bank of Ghana, Kwame Agyapong Oppong, speaking on behalf of the First Deputy Governor, Dr. Maxwell Opoku-Afari, at the Regulatory Sandbox Stakeholders Engagement in Accra on Tuesday October 5, 2022, said, even though the emergence of new technology has fueled the digitalisation drive in the Ghanaian financial service industry with tremendous impact on efficiency and convenience, a lot remains to be achieved.
The boundaries of financial service are becoming increasingly blurred and therefore behooves regulators and other technical and professional institutions to collaborate to promote a safe and efficient financial service industry,” Dr. Opoku-Afari urged.
He cautioned that, the laissez-faire attitude to innovation and financial service delivery is unsuitable and therefore called for a shared responsibility of the regulator and the innovators to create a conducive environment for experimentation.
This approach, though useful, has its own risks; and if not properly directed, could be disastrous to society,” he warned.
For this reason, he said, Bank of Ghana has created a properly guided enabling environment, through the introduction of its Regulatory Sandbox, which has been designed for innovators to test innovative financial products, services and business models in a controlled but live environment; and rightfully so, under the supervision of the Bank.
The stakeholders’ engagement forum therefore presents a further opportunity to have an ongoing collaboration with industry to explore different perspectives and to work towards a common goal, which is the welfare of society. Now, don’t get me wrong. My reference to societal welfare is not diametrically opposed to the cherished profit incentive of private enterprises. I am aware, and indeed expect you, to make profit to justify your existence and investment. Nevertheless, meeting the needs of society is an essential condition to profit making. You all stay in business when you solve societal problems,” he noted.
Dr. Opoku-Afari stressed that the Bank of Ghana as a regulator of financial service maintains the highest level of confidentiality and secrecy. For this reason, “your participation in the Bank’s Regulatory Sandbox will not expose your ideas to third parties. We would like to assure you that every staff is committed to an oath of secrecy and under no circumstance will third party information be disclosed. A breach of the secrecy requirement attracts serious sanctions including dismissal,” he emphasized.
He noted that significant strides have been achieved in the mobilissation of granular transactions, deployment of user-centric designs, delivery of affordable services and improved accessibility with phenomenal beneficial impact on financial inclusion.
Ghana’s recent remarkable performance in financial inclusion from 58% in 2017 to 68% in 2021 as reported in the 2021 Global Findex has been largely facilitated by digital financial service.
Innovation and retooling of regulatory framework are not new to the Bank of Ghana. In fact, the Bank has been at the forefront of innovation in the financial service industry for decades. In the not-too-distant past, precisely in 2003, the Payment Systems Act 2003(Act 662) had in its preamble the promotion of electronic payments and set the stage for the establishment of GhIPSS and the many investments in the interbank payments infrastructure that have laid a strong foundation for digital financial service in Ghana.
Since then, many more innovations and corresponding enabling regulatory regime have been provided, of which Act 987 is the most recent. Clearly, these and many commitments, including the regulatory sandbox are evidence of the Bank’s response to the prevailing industry dynamics and encourage stakeholders to take advantage of the opportunities Bank of Ghana has presented to inject some dynamism into their offerings through innovation
