Bank of Ghana launches regulatory and innovation sandbox pilot
The Bank of Ghana has launched a regulatory and innovation sandbox pilot in collaboration with EMTECH Service LLC.
The launch is in line with its commitment to evolving an enabling and inclusive regulatory environment that promotes FinTechs and supports innovation.
A statement issued in Accra by Madam Sandra Thompson, Secretary of the Central Bank, said within the financial sector, a regulatory and innovation sandbox was a supportive and controlled policy environment that allowed firms to test innovative products, services and business models under the supervision of a regulator.
It said effectively, the regulatory and innovation sandbox would 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,” it said.
The statement said the sandbox would 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.
It said innovations eligible for the sandbox environment would have to satisfy any of the following broad categories, including new digital business models not currently covered explicitly or implicitly under any regulation; new and immature digital financial service technology; and innovative digital financial services products that have the potential of addressing a persistent financial inclusion challenge.
“Within the broad categories outlined, the BoG will give preference to products and services leveraging block chain technology, remittance products, crowdfunding products and services, e-KYC (electronic know your customer) platforms and RegTech (regulatory technology).
It will also give preference to SupTech (supervisory technology), digital banking, products and services targeting women financial inclusion and innovative merchant payment solutions for micro, small and medium size enterprises.
Source: GNA