Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr Johnson Pandit Asiama, has called for a fundamental shift in financial regulation to keep pace with rapid technological innovation, warning that safeguarding Ghana’s financial system now requires protecting not only individual institutions but also the digital networks that connect them.
Delivering the keynote address at the inaugural Financial Architecture Summit 2026 organised by the National Banking College (NBC) in Accra on Wednesday, Dr Asiama said the country’s financial landscape was undergoing profound transformation driven by digital platforms, artificial intelligence, mobile money, cloud computing and emerging technologies.
“The financial system we regulate today is no longer defined only by banks, balance sheets and banking halls,” he said. “In a digital financial system, stability depends not only on the strength of institutions, but also on the strength of the connections between them.”
He said central banks must broaden their supervisory approach beyond traditional financial risks to include operational, technological and cybersecurity risks while engaging with innovation before it reaches the market.
Dr Asiama noted that Ghana had established one of Africa’s leading digital finance ecosystems, citing strong growth in electronic payments.
According to him, Ghanaians transacted GH¢493.2 billion through mobile money in April 2026 across 967 million transactions, with 26 million active accounts supported by 534,000 active agents. During the same period, GhIPSS Instant Pay processed GH¢79 billion, while the number of point-of-sale terminals increased from just over 16,000 a year earlier to more than 23,000.
Despite the progress, the BoG Governor cautioned that digitalisation had introduced new vulnerabilities, including increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, digital fraud, operational risks and growing dependence on third-party technology providers.
He also pointed to the emergence of virtual assets, tokenised financial instruments and decentralised finance as developments that present significant regulatory, prudential and consumer protection challenges.
Dr Asiama said the Bank of Ghana was responding by modernising both regulation and supervision to strengthen the resilience of the financial ecosystem.
He highlighted the revised Cyber and Information Security Directive launched in March, describing it as a major milestone in expanding financial sector oversight beyond capital adequacy and liquidity to include data security, artificial intelligence governance and cloud technology adoption.
The directive, he said, requires financial institutions to strengthen board-level oversight of cyber risk while introducing Ghana’s first comprehensive framework governing the use of artificial intelligence in areas such as fraud detection, credit scoring and customer service.
The Governor outlined three strategic priorities guiding the central bank’s reforms.
The first is modernising financial infrastructure through secure, interoperable payment systems, the advancement of Open Banking, continued development of the e-Cedi for wholesale and cross-border payments, and support for licence passporting to facilitate regional financial integration.
The second priority focuses on updating the regulatory framework to accommodate emerging technologies and business models. Dr Asiama announced that the Bank had completed a Digital Banking Framework and accompanying draft guidelines, which are now ready for stakeholder consultation.
He also revealed that implementation work was underway following Parliament’s passage of the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Act, 2025 (Act 1154), with the Bank of Ghana and the Securities and Exchange Commission jointly developing licensing requirements and operational guidelines for virtual asset providers.
The third priority, he said, is strengthening supervisory resilience by paying closer attention to concentration risks, shared technology providers and operational dependencies capable of transmitting disruption across the financial system.
As part of this effort, the Financial Industry Command Security Operations Centre is being expanded beyond universal banks to cover savings and loans companies, microfinance institutions, fintech firms and partner regulators.
“A financial ecosystem is only as strong as its weakest link, and a shield built around part of the sector is not a shield,” he said.
Dr Asiama urged financial institutions to match technological innovation with stronger governance, cybersecurity investments, effective risk management and ethical leadership.
“Innovation should not simply be viewed as an opportunity to deploy new technologies,” he said. “When technology advances faster than governance, opportunity can quickly become concentrated risk.”
He also underscored the importance of developing human capital, arguing that technology alone could not guarantee a resilient financial system.
“No digital platform, however sophisticated, can substitute for sound judgment. No algorithm can replace ethical leadership. No technological innovation can compensate for weak governance,” he stated.
The Governor commended the National Banking College for its role in preparing current and future financial sector leaders to navigate the evolving financial landscape.
He reaffirmed the Bank of Ghana’s commitment to supporting innovation that promotes financial inclusion, competition and efficiency while maintaining monetary and financial stability.
“The future of finance is not something that simply unfolds before us,” Dr Asiama concluded. “It is something we must consciously design. The financial architecture of the future must be innovative enough to expand opportunity, but resilient enough to preserve trust.”
Source: www.kumasimail.com
