Applications for First Cohort of Bank of Ghana Regulatory Sandbox to Open on February 13 2023

The Central Bank of Ghana (BoG) is calling on innovators to apply to join the first cohort of its regulatory sandbox between February 13 – March 14 2023.

According to the apex bank, all innovators are invited to apply, in particular, Financial Service Providers (FSPs) listed below:

• Banks
• Specialized deposit-taking institutions
• Payment Service Providers (PSPs)
• Non-bank financial institutions
• Aspiring fintech start-ups

In a press release, the bank said the Regulatory Sandbox will support innovations in any of the following areas:

• 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
• Crowdfunding, and
• Micro-lending

The apex bank launched the regulatory and innovation sandbox in October 2022 which was developed in collaboration with Emtech Solutions, a software services firm that targets central banks.

The Bank of Ghana indicated that the sandbox will serve as an enabling framework for small-scale, live testing of innovations by innovators. The innovations will operate under what is described as a special exemption, allowance, or other limited, time-bound exception, in a controlled environment under the regulator’s supervision.

The sandbox aims primarily at fostering a deeper understanding of innovative products, services, and business models by the regulator. This will allow for potential improvements to legal and regulatory requirements making them more inclusive of emerging technologies and ensuring careful monitoring and containment of any risks that may emerge.

According to Emtech, Bank of Ghana will leverage the platform to review sandbox applications officially submitted by the FSPs and assess the data submitted via the regulatory reporting APIs. This delivers a modern risk monitoring tool for regulated and yet-to-be-regulated innovations going to market.

Interested entities should submit a complete application in the prescribed form via this link: https://bit.ly/BoG-Sandbox

Prospective participants will be notified of their application results within 21 business days after the deadline of the application window, which is March 14th 2023.