Bank of Ghana (BoG) Governor Dr. Johnson Pandit Asiama opened the 2026 edition of the 3i Africa Summit in Accra on Wednesday with a pointed challenge to the continent’s digital finance community: expanding access to financial accounts is no longer sufficient, and Africa must now generate measurable economic value from the infrastructure it has built.
Speaking at the summit at Makers House, Dr. Asiama said Africa stands at a critical inflection point where progress in digital finance must translate into measurable economic impact, noting that while nearly half of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa now have access to digital financial accounts, the real challenge lies in deepening usage and creating sustainable value.
The three-day summit, running from 6 to 8 May, brings together central bank governors, policymakers, fintech leaders and investors under the theme “Shaping Africa’s Integrated FinTech Future.” It is hosted by the Bank of Ghana in partnership with the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) and the Global Finance and Technology Network (GFTN).
Asiama outlined a specific agenda for the next phase of digital finance development, pointing to digital credit, embedded finance, supply chain finance and cross-border financial services as priority areas. He said these higher-value services are critical to reaching micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), women and informal sector participants who remain underserved despite gains in basic account access.
He emphasised that while mobile money and branchless banking have laid a strong foundation, Africa must now build more sophisticated systems that deliver tangible value, and identified structural challenges including fragmentation, high transaction costs and uneven regulatory alignment across jurisdictions as key constraints limiting that next phase of progress.
On regulation, Asiama rejected the framing of a choice between stability and innovation. “Regulation and growth are not opposing forces. They must reinforce each other,” he said. The BoG, he indicated, is advancing specific reforms to embody that principle, including a virtual assets regulatory regime, digital credit guidelines, open banking frameworks and cross-border fintech facilitation measures.
Beyond policy frameworks, Asiama stressed the need for stronger regulatory processes, arguing that transparency, efficiency and timely decision-making are essential to building the market confidence on which investment and scaling depend.
The Governor placed particular emphasis on digital identity infrastructure, warning that weak Know Your Customer (KYC) and authentication systems increase fraud risk and erode the trust on which digital financial services depend. He called for investment in robust identity systems and improved data governance as foundational requirements for the ecosystem’s next stage of development.
Asiama also called for deliberate support for indigenous fintech firms, arguing that Africa’s digital finance ecosystem must not only expand but mature, with high-potential companies given access to capital, infrastructure and partnerships to compete at scale.
He concluded that the summit would position Ghana and Africa more prominently within the global financial system and help shape the development of future financial standards and partnerships, framing the central question facing the continent as whether it will merely adopt the next phase of finance or actively help shape it.
Ghana’s role as host of the AfCFTA Secretariat and its increasingly active regulatory posture in digital finance position Accra as a natural convening point for that conversation. The 3i platform, built around the pillars of Innovation, Investment and Impact, was designed precisely to close the gap between policy ambition and market execution that Asiama identified as Africa’s most pressing challenge.
