The Bank of Ghana (BoG), in line with its commitment to evolve an enabling and inclusive regulatory environment that promotes financial technologies (FinTechs) and supports innovation, has launched the SandBox Pilot programme.
The SandBox Pilot programme provides a supportive and controlled policy environment that enables firms particularly FinTechs to test innovative products, services and business models under the supervision of a regulator, to assess the usefulness, viability and safety of innovations in the financial services industry.
The sandbox according to the BoG, will be available to banks, specialised deposit-taking institutions and payment service providers including dedicated electronic money issuers as well as unregulated entities and persons that have innovations that meet the sandbox requirements.
Financial services innovations eligible for the sandbox environment, the BoG noted in its press release on Thursday, will have to satisfy any of the following:
- New digital business models not currently covered explicitly or implicitly under any regulation;
- New and immature digital financial service technology
- Innovative digital financial services products that have the potential of addressing a persistent financial inclusion challenge.
The Central Bank added it will give preference to products and services leveraging blockchain technology, remittance products, crowdfunding products and services, e-KYC (electronic know your customer) platforms, RegTech (regulatory technology), SupTech (supervisory technology), digital banking, products and services targeting women financial inclusion and innovative merchant payment solutions for micro, small and medium size enterprises (MSMEs).
