Kwame Oppong, Director of FinTech and Innovation, BoG
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has announced it will open its Regulatory Sandbox for financial innovations from February 13, 2023 to March 14, 2023 to admit the first cohort of participants.
A statement issued by the FinTech and Innovation Office of the BoG, said banks, specialised deposit taking institutions, payment service providers, non-bank financial institutions and aspiring FinTech start-ups and all innovators can apply to the platform.
The BoG established a regulatory and innovation sandbox as an important tool for evolving a regulatory framework supportive of responsible innovations and for nurturing new business models.
The framework enables small scale, live testing of innovative financial products, services and business models by eligible financial service providers and startups (operating under a special exemption, allowance, or other limited, time bound exception) in a controlled environment under the supervision of the Bank of Ghana.
By this arrangement, innovators are permitted to temporarily test new ideas without being subjected to the full set of regulatory requirements applicable outside the sandbox while addressing users’ and the regulator’s respective concerns.
The statement said the Regulatory Sandbox will support innovations in new digital business models not currently covered explicitly or implicitly under any regulation; new and immature digital financial service technology and innovative and disruptive digital financial service products that have the potential of addressing a present financial inclusion challenge.
“The first cohort window, however, will largely accept innovations from among the following priority areas; Payments, Remittances; Crowd funding and Micro-lending,” it indicated.
It further explained that entities eligible to participate in the Regulatory Sandbox include banks and specialised deposit-taking institutions, savings and loans companies, microfinance companies, financial holding companies, dedicated electronic money issuers, payment service providers, and unlicensed FinTech start-ups.
Interested entities are to submit a complete application through https://bog.gh.app.emtech.com/login.
“Prospective participants will be informed of the outcome of the application within twenty-one (21) working days after the closure of the application window on 14th March 2023,” it added.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri