The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has laid out a clear vision for a future where intra-African trade is settled in African currencies, using African payment infrastructure, and governed by African institutions.
The Second Deputy Governor of the central bank, Matilda Asante Asiedu, stated that achieving this is critical for empowering the continent’s SMEs, women, and youth, who currently bear the brunt of high transaction costs and payment inefficiencies.
Speaking at the Africa Prosperity Dialogues (APD) 2026 on Wednesday, 4 February 2026, at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC), she stated that “financial inclusion must not just be within borders; it must extend beyond individual country borders.”
She stated that Ghana’s strategic investments in developing a “modern, interoperable, and resilient payment ecosystem” now provide a strong foundation for cross-border collaboration.
Scaling the ‘fintech passport’ across Africa
A key initiative highlighted was the ‘Fintech Passport,’ a transactional collaboration between the Bank of Ghana and the National Bank of Rwanda designed to enable cross-border licensing and build regulatory trust.
“We believe that this solution could be scalable across Africa to facilitate trade and settlement paths, which enables cross-border payments in local African currencies,” the Deputy Governor said. She added that this shortens the long value chain and significantly lowers the cost of trade.
Next-gen infrastructure and regulation
Asante Asiedu outlined other pioneering efforts by the BoG, including its Next Generation Digital Public Infrastructure initiative, which is testing multilateral interoperability frameworks and future cross-border currency arrangements.
She also pointed to the recently passed Virtual Asset Service Providers Act as a forward-looking regulation designed to “support emerging digital channel payments while ensuring strong consumer protection and risk oversight.”
These measures, she argued, recognise that payment systems are “critical national and continental infrastructure,” requiring robust cybersecurity and coordinated governance.
Linking the technical reforms to the APD’s core theme, the Deputy Governor underscored that SMEs—which account for over 90% of Africa’s businesses—are dominated by women in the informal trade sector, while young Africans are leading the digital revolution.
“Yet high transaction costs and payment inefficiencies disproportionately affect these groups.Therefore, we believe that removing these barriers will unlock skill and strengthen competitiveness, as well as expand opportunities across Africa,” she said.
A call for collective action
To move from pilot projects to full-scale execution, Asante Asiedu called for a collective continental priority to harmonise regulatory standards across borders, advance licensing passports across African countries, strengthen digital public infrastructure, expand cross-border mobile money and instant payment systems, and broaden digital onboarding and payment services for the SME sector.
“This single market will not be finished until its creation is seamless,” she said. “When entrepreneurship transcends borders without friction and when innovation is supported by trust and strong institutions… we can turn cross-border payments from being a constraint to a new catalyst for Africa’s shared prosperity.”
She concluded by affirming that the Bank of Ghana stands ready to collaborate and “move from discussions to action.”
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