The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has won the Central Banking’s FinTech Policy of the Year Award 2022 which was announced at its Fifth Annual FinTech RegTech Global Awards ceremony.

The Annual FinTech RegTech Global Awards recognizes the technological achievements of central banks, supervisors, and commercial tech providers worldwide.

The Bank of Ghana’s recognition was as a result of the Bank’s remarkable development of a Supervisory Intelligence Platform, which aims to streamline the collection and analysis of granular data from regulated FinTechs.

BOG — BoG Governor (middle) and his two Deputies

The platform also enhances the Bank’s capabilities for evidence-based policy interventions in the dynamic digital financial service ecosystem.

Commenting on the award, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison, said, “On behalf of the Board, Management, and staff of the Bank of Ghana, I accept the FinTech and RegTech Global Awards for the FinTech Policy of the Year Award 2022 category, with honour and pride”.

“The purpose of innovation is not to follow trends; but to create solutions that are unique, tailored, and adaptable to one’s ecosystem. I wish to express the Bank’s gratitude to Central Banking for the recognition of this innovative policy tool, which was borne out of our quest to promote inclusive innovation in a safe and secure environment.

“Particularly, I also want to applaud the efforts of the Bank’s FinTech and Innovation Office for the development of this tool in-house. I believe this award will spur us to develop additional innovative ways to further enhance regulation and supervision of Ghana’s thriving digital financial service ecosystem”.
Dr. Ernest Addison

Lauch of the GhanaPay mobile wallet

Just yesterday, June 15, 2022, Ghana launched a new digital banking product – GhanaPay mobile wallet- to facilitate resource pooling from the entire banking industry and reduce duplication.

Speaking at the Launch of the GhanaPay mobile wallet, Dr. Ernest Addison highlighted that banks in Ghana are re-inventing themselves and have continued to respond positively to the competitive nature of the payment systems, characterized by increased consumer preferences for convenience and frictionless payment options.

The launch of GhanaPay mobile wallet, he said, marks yet another milestone in the digitization of the country’s financial system.

According to him, the emergence of new business models in the banking sector, together with partnerships with financial technology (FinTechs) companies in offering of payment-related services, have also helped to bridge the financial inclusion gap.

“Beyond the opportunity to compete directly on product offerings and quality of services, the bank-FinTech collaboration would help in the realization of common objectives and enable participants achieve economies of scale in the expansion of the payment networks, as well as reach critical mass of financial inclusiveness in the country”.
Dr. Ernest Addison

The Governor further underscored that this collaboration is commendable and should therefore, be sustained since payments represent an indispensable activity for businesses and individuals. Improving efficiency in financial transactions through electronic payments would not only increase productivity, but also minimize costs, he explained.

Beyond this, and at the macro level, migration to electronic payments also has the potential to improve Ghana’s competitiveness and efficiency in cross-border transactions. The Governor emphasized that the benefits from a successful migration to electronic payments in terms of efficiency, gains, and cost savings, are enormous and should be encouraged.

Ghana’s progress in migrating to electronic payments has been laudable. In less than a decade, the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems’ (GhIPSS) Instant Pay transactions valued at GH¢420,000 in 2016 surged exponentially to GH¢31.4 billion in 2021.

In tandem, both the value of mobile money transactions and registered mobile money agents also increased thirteen and four folds, respectively in 2021.

Another key development was that Ghana’s cash usage, measured by Currency in Circulation as a ratio of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), declined from 6.8 percent in 2016 to 4.7 percent in 2021. In addition, Ghana’s cheque usage per capita, which was 25.67 in 2016 declined to 18.9 in 2021.