Ghana’s Digital Chamber has backed the Bank of Ghana’s revocation of Zeepay’s electronic money licence, even as the fintech battles insolvency proceedings and a court judgment against its chief executive.
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) pulled Zeepay Ghana Limited’s Dedicated Electronic Money Issuer (DEMI) licence on Tuesday, saying the company issued electronic money without the cash to back it and ignored directives to restore customer funds and wind down its e money issuing business. The central bank said letting Zeepay keep operating under the licence threatened the stability of the payment system, and it acted under Section 13 of the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019 (Act 987). BoG Secretary Aimee Vyda Quashie signed the notice.
The Digital Chamber, an industry body representing licensed payment service providers, said it respects the central bank’s mandate to protect the integrity of the payment system and consumers. It called Zeepay a valued member that has helped expand digital payments, financial inclusion and cross border remittances across Africa, but said that record does not change the need for regulatory action where it is warranted. “The regulatory action relates to a specific institution,” the Chamber said in its statement, adding that it does not reflect the health of the wider digital payments sector. It urged affected customers, agents and merchants to stay calm and use the complaint channels the central bank has set up.
The revocation lands on top of a run of legal trouble for Zeepay and its founder, Andrew Takyi Appiah. Ghana’s High Court Commercial Division ordered the company and Takyi Appiah personally to pay a customer more than 11.6 million dollars this month, after finding that funds meant for onward transfer had instead gone into the chief executive’s personal mobile money wallet. A separate winding up petition filed by creditor Obsidian Achernar Limited over an unpaid debt tied to a 2024 foreign exchange agreement remains before the same court. In May, the Central Bank of Barbados suspended the licence of Zeepay’s Barbados subsidiary, and the Bank of Ghana had already fined Zeepay and briefly suspended its forex licence in 2023 over a separate breach.
Whether Zeepay’s other licences, including its remittance and mobile money termination business, survive this latest blow remains unclear. The Bank of Ghana has not said so publicly, and Zeepay itself has yet to respond to the DEMI revocation.
