The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seems to have gone ahead of the Central Bank in the regulation of digital currencies popularly known as cryptocurrency.
The Commission’s readiness to regulate cryptocurrency which fast gaining prominence in the country comes on the back of the Commission’s launch of a 10-year Masterplan project.
The 10-year Masterplan project launched by the Commission, aims at diversifying the capital market as well as boosting economic growth.
The plan is intended to help raise enough capital for key infrastructural projects in order to meet the country’s growth agenda. It is expected to serve as a blueprint for developing the market in Ghana over the next 10 years.
In a media interaction on the sidelines of the launch of the Commission’s 10-year Masterplan project, Deputy Director General of SEC, Paul Ababio, noted that SEC as part of the implementation of Master plan will also look at implementing an engagement series with sector players in the digital currency space to dialogue on how to regulate cryptocurrency use in the country.
“We will be establishing a “Fintech roundtable’ and invite selected participants. We will also have an engagement session around this and come out with a clear cut policy”, he said.
“We will be able to spell out what the strategy will be, on how to address it. There are various dynamics to the crypto currency occurrence; there’s the actual block chain technology which can be deployed for other purposes and then the monetization of that technology and how it interacts with the real sector”, he added.
“Obviously, as regulators we have concerns with money laundering, and how that will be dealt with”, he further stated.
Meanwhile the Bank of Ghana (BoG) as earlier reported by norvanreports, has already revealed plans to issue a digital currency of its own.
Some two months ago, the Second Deputy Governor of the BoG, Mrs Elsie Awadzi Addo, speaking at the virtual regional capacity building workshop organized jointly by IMF’s AFRITAC West 2 and Monetary and Capital Markets Department (MCM), announced the BoG’s intention to launch of a Central Bank Digital Currency.
Mrs Awadzi Addo speaking further, noted the Bank’s decision to possibly launch a digital currency, is to ensure and provide further support for the orderly development of the digital financial services landscape in the country.
She however, failed to provide timelines for the launch and issuance of the digital currency by the Bank as well as the Bank’s preparedness and some details to the regulation of the digital currency.
