BoG Urges National Crackdown on Unlicensed Financial Operators
The Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Matilda Asante‑Asiedu, has urged the nation to adopt a coherent, strategic approach to tackle the proliferation of unauthorised financial actors that are undermining confidence and resilience in Ghana’s financial architecture. Warning that as the economy rebounds and digital financial services and credit access widen, gaps in regulation have opened avenues for unscrupulous operators across banking, telecommunications and media channels to exploit consumers. This is a concern she raised while inaugurating a technical committee session for the Committee for Co‑operation between Law Enforcement Agencies and the Banking Community (COCLAB) in Accra on 18 December, 2024. During the session she highlighted that disjointed supervision has weakened enforcement and stressed that regulators, security agencies, financial firms, network providers and the press must strengthen collaboration because protecting public trust and the soundness of the financial ecosystem depends on it. The COCLAB initiative, inspired by INTERPOL’s 1988 Resolution to fight economic crime, was convened under the theme “Promoting financial integrity through multi‑stakeholder cooperation” with representatives from the judiciary, police, national security and other agencies in attendance. Mrs Asante‑Asiedu noted that the surge in digital finance and instant credit platforms has made it easy for illegal operators to offer products that resemble legitimate services while imposing harsh conditions and aggressive recovery practices, with the central bank logging more than fifty complaints in 2024 alone about unregulated savings, investment and lending schemes — a trend she said. Arrests, public alerts and enforcement actions, though necessary, have not sufficiently stemmed, calling for enhanced intelligence‑sharing and institutional coordination to outpace increasingly sophisticated threats. She emphasised that cooperation must move beyond discussion to implementation because no single agency oversees the whole spectrum, and a united, sustained multi‑agency effort is essential to defend consumers and uphold confidence in the financial system. This is a point reinforced by the Head of BoG’s Financial Stability Department, Dr Kwasi Osei‑Yeboah, who argued that tackling unauthorised and cloned financial entities requires collective tactics as these groups use technology loopholes to prey on vulnerable people, while an Appeals Court Judge, Justice Afia Serwaa Asare‑Botwe, noted her courtroom experience with banking fraud and illegal operations harming unsuspecting citizens, urging that wrongdoing be labelled and addressed for what it truly is.
