- Bank of Ghana to Tighten Oversight Of Cyber, AI, Cloud And Virtual Asset Risks
The Bank of Ghana is shifting its regulatory focus beyond individual banks to the wider digital finance ecosystem, warning that financial stability now depends not only on the strength of banks, but also on the resilience of payment networks, technology providers, telecommunications infrastructure and digital platforms that connect the financial system.
Speaking at the inaugural Financial Architecture Summit 2026 organised by the National Banking College in Accra, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Johnson Pandit Asiama, said the financial system had moved far beyond the traditional world of banks, balance sheets and banking halls.
“The financial system we regulate today is no longer defined only by banks, balance sheets and banking halls. It is increasingly shaped by digital platforms, payment networks, technology providers and new forms of financial intermediation,” Dr Asiama said.
The Governor’s comments point to a major evolution in central banking in Ghana. For decades, financial supervision largely focused on the safety and soundness of licensed financial institutions. But with the rise of mobile money, instant payments, fintechs, digital banking, artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure and virtual assets, the risk map has changed.
Dr Asiama said the implication for central banks was clear: regulators could no longer safeguard stability by looking only at individual institutions. In a digital financial system, stability also depends on the strength of the connections between institutions.
That message comes at a time when Ghana’s digital finance ecosystem is expanding rapidly. According to the Governor, Ghanaians moved GH¢493.20 billion through mobile money in April 2026 alone, across 967 million transactions. Active mobile money accounts stood at 26 million, served by 534,000 active agents, while GhIPSS Instant Pay settled a further GH¢79.00 billion. Point of sale terminals also increased from just over 16,000 a year earlier to more than 23,000.
These numbers show how deeply digital finance has entered daily economic life. Mobile money and instant payments are no longer peripheral services. They have become part of Ghana’s core financial infrastructure, supporting commerce, household transfers, merchant payments, financial inclusion and small business activity.
But the Governor warned that the same innovation that expands access also creates new vulnerabilities. Cybersecurity threats are becoming more sophisticated, digital fraud is becoming more complex, and operational resilience is now as important as financial resilience.
He also pointed to the increasing reliance on third-party technology providers, cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence, saying these raise important questions about governance, accountability, data protection and systemic risk. The rise of virtual assets, tokenised financial instruments and decentralised finance, he added, presents promise but also serious regulatory, prudential and consumer protection challenges.
The Bank of Ghana’s response is to modernise its supervisory philosophy. Dr Asiama said the central bank’s approach was shifting from a narrow focus on institutional supervision to a broader concern with ecosystem resilience.
“A bank may be financially sound and still be vulnerable to the failure of a shared technology provider, a payment network or a critical telecommunications service,” he said.
This is one of the strongest policy signals from the speech. It means the Bank of Ghana is increasingly likely to scrutinise not only banks and fintechs, but also the operational dependencies around them. These include cloud service providers, payment switches, cybersecurity systems, telecom networks, outsourced technology vendors and shared digital infrastructure.
Dr Asiama said the revised Cyber and Information Security Directive, launched in March 2026, was the clearest expression of this shift. The directive places cyber risk expertise on boards, establishes rules for artificial intelligence use in fraud detection, credit scoring and customer service, and sets clear requirements for cloud technology adoption.
“This Bank no longer supervises only capital adequacy ratios and liquidity positions,” he said, adding that the central bank was now also safeguarding the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data that powers the economy.
The Governor outlined three priority areas for the Bank of Ghana: modernising financial infrastructure, modernising the regulatory framework and strengthening supervisory resilience.
On infrastructure, he said the central bank was investing in a secure, efficient, interoperable and inclusive national payments ecosystem. He also disclosed that Ghana’s Open Banking project had reached an advanced stage, with the aim of enabling secure financial data sharing, subject to customer consent, to support competition, innovation and customer choice.
The Bank of Ghana is also continuing work on the e-Cedi, exploring its possible use in cross-border transactions and wholesale payments within the domestic financial system as a complement to the existing real-time gross settlement infrastructure.
On regulation, Dr Asiama said the Bank had prepared a Digital Banking Framework and comprehensive draft guidelines, which are now ready for stakeholder consultation. The framework is expected to provide the regulatory foundation for the next phase of digital banking in Ghana.
He also noted that Parliament passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025, Act 1154, in December 2025, creating a formal legal framework for virtual asset activities in Ghana. The Bank of Ghana, together with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is now developing licensing requirements and implementation guidelines to operationalise the law.
The Governor further announced that the Financial Industry Command Security Operations Centre, designated under the Cybersecurity Act, 2020 as the sectoral computer emergency response team for the financial industry, is being expanded beyond universal banks to include savings and loans companies, microfinance institutions, fintechs 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 also placed responsibility on financial institutions, warning that innovation must be accompanied by stronger governance, cybersecurity, risk management, consumer protection, talent development and accountable leadership.
“When technology advances faster than governance, opportunity can quickly become concentrated risk,” he said.
The speech also highlighted the importance of human capital. The Governor said no digital platform, no matter how sophisticated, could replace sound judgment, ethical leadership or strong governance. He said the future of Ghana’s financial sector would depend not only on technology, but also on people capable of challenging models, understanding their limitations and remaining accountable for decisions supported by technology.
The broader message from the Governor was that Ghana’s financial architecture must be consciously designed, not left to evolve without safeguards.
For the Bank of Ghana, the task is to enable innovation without allowing it to outrun trust, consumer protection and systemic stability. For banks, fintechs and other financial institutions, the warning is clear: technology adoption will no longer be judged only by speed, convenience and market share, but also by resilience, governance and accountability.
As Ghana’s digital finance ecosystem grows, the next regulatory battle will not only be about who holds a banking licence. It will be about who controls data, who manages operational dependencies, who protects consumers and who remains accountable when digital systems fail.
Dr Asiama’s message was therefore both strategic and cautionary: the future of finance must be innovative enough to expand opportunity, but resilient enough to preserve trust.
