Bank of Ghana Governor Dr. Johnson Pandit Asiama on Thursday urged African financial regulators to focus on managing the risks posed by emerging technologies rather than the technologies themselves, laying out a supervisory philosophy that marks a significant shift in how Ghana’s central bank approaches digital finance oversight.
Speaking at the ACI Financial Markets Association (ACI FMA) World Congress in Accra, Asiama said the Bank of Ghana (BoG) had arrived at this position through hard experience. “We were quite late when it comes to fintech,” he told delegates, acknowledging that innovation in Ghana’s payments market had moved ahead of regulatory capacity before the central bank established a dedicated payment systems department in 2016. That gap, he said, carried lessons that now guide the institution’s approach.
“Do not regulate the technology, but regulate the risk,” the Governor said, framing the principle as the cornerstone of how Ghana intends to handle an increasingly complex digital financial landscape.
The remarks signal a deliberate broadening of the central bank’s mandate. Asiama told the congress that the role of central banks has evolved well beyond traditional monetary policy into areas including artificial intelligence (AI), data governance, fintech supervision and cybersecurity. The BoG has already created new internal departments focused on AI, data analytics and virtual asset oversight, and is now considering a standalone regulatory framework dedicated specifically to fintech supervision.
The Governor said the central bank is also working with regional institutions to build regulatory sandbox environments where innovators and regulators can test emerging payment technologies under controlled conditions before any wider rollout. He linked this sandbox work to the broader continental push to strengthen the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) and improve settlement infrastructure under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Asiama stressed that financial inclusion remains an urgent priority alongside innovation, noting that some regions in Ghana still have only a handful of bank branches. Digital finance, he said, is not optional for a country where physical banking infrastructure remains unevenly distributed.
He closed with a call for central banks across Africa to maintain institutional credibility by intensifying dialogue with financial institutions, investors and market operators, arguing that trust and transparency underpin every regulatory framework regardless of how sophisticated its technology becomes.
