The Bank of Ghana launched a regulatory and innovation sandbox pilot in collaboration with fintech firm EMTECH which provides cloud-based software specifically for central banks.
The sandbox is a supportive and controlled policy environment that enables firms to test innovative products, services and business models under the supervision of a regulator.
It will provide a forum for financial sector innovators to interact with the sector regulator to test digital financial service innovations while evolving enabling regulatory environment.
In this regard, the bank and the innovator are able to assess the usefulness, viability and safety of innovations through shared understanding of their respective interests.
The sandbox will be available to banks, specialised deposit-taking institutions and payment service providers including dedicated electronic money issuers as well as unregulated entities and persons that have innovations that meet the sandbox requirements.
The Bank of Ghana would give preference to products and services leveraging blockchain technology, remittance products, crowdfunding products and services, e-KYC (electronic know your customer) platforms, RegTech (regulatory technology), SupTech (supervisory technology), digital banking, products and services targeting women financial inclusion and innovative merchant payment solutions for micro, small and medium size enterprises (MSMEs).
“The Bank of Ghana through this project, would like to reaffirm its commitment to addressing the financial inclusion needs of the unbanked and underserved persons and businesses”, the central bank said in a statement.
“EMTECH is proud to partner with the Bank of Ghana on its digital transformation journey, and I believe that our partnership establishes a template that other regulators and stakeholders can embrace as together we test and deploy the inclusive, robust central banking infrastructure of tomorrow.
This is also a great opportunity for fintechs looking to engage as they aim to go to market,”
said Carmelle Cadet, Founder and CEO of EMTECH.
Featured image: Bank of Ghana
