By Benjamin Adamafio Commey, GNA
Accra, Aug. 18, GNA – The Bank of Ghana (BoG) says it will strengthen support and resources for smaller financial institutions to improve their cybersecurity resilience and ensure institutions across the financial system meet the minimum cybersecurity standards.
Mrs Matilda Asante-Asiedu, the Second Deputy Governor of the BoG, said the initiative would extend the resources supporting the Bank’s Cyber Security Directive to smaller institutions, particularly community banks, which often lacked the financial and technical capacity of Tier One banks.
Cyber resilience, she noted, must not become the preserve of large financial institutions because vulnerabilities in smaller institutions could expose the wider financial ecosystem to systemic risks.
“Cyber resilience is not the privilege of Tier One institutions, but a baseline that the entire system, including the smallest community banks, can actually meet,” she said.
Mrs Asante-Asiedu said this on Monday at the ongoing National ICT Week at the University of Ghana.
It is on the theme: “Innovation at Scale: Creating Opportunities Across Ghana’s Digital Ecosystem.”
She said cybersecurity had evolved from being a technical concern into a major constraint to the expansion of digital financial services, particularly as Ghana’s payment ecosystem became increasingly interconnected.
“This very interoperability that makes our systems inclusive also makes it a single attractive target,” the Second Deputy Governor said, stressing the need for stronger protection across the entire financial system.
The BoG’s Cybersecurity and Information Security Directive, CISC-2026, had been developed to respond to emerging risks associated with cloud computing, artificial intelligence, credit decision-making and increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, she noted.
However, Mrs Asante-Asiedu cautioned that the effectiveness of the directive would depend on the capacity of institutions of all sizes to implement it.
“A directive is only as strong as the smallest institution’s capacity to implement it,” she said.
Mrs Asante-Asiedu noted the rapid growth of digital financial services, which had made cybersecurity a shared responsibility, requiring financial institutions, regulators and technology providers to strengthen their systems and skills.
She said Ghana’s financial ecosystem had achieved significant scale through interoperable payment infrastructure, with mobile money platforms processing 954 million transactions valued at about GH¢493 billion in June 2026 alone.
The country had also recorded about 84.6 million registered mobile money accounts, of which 26.4 million were active, supported by more than one million registered agents, she said.
The scale of digital transactions, the Deputy Governor noted, meant that a major cybersecurity incident could have consequences beyond individual institutions and affect confidence in the broader financial system.
The BoG was, therefore, committed to creating a regulatory environment that supported innovation while maintaining safeguards against fraud, cyber threats and systemic risks.
“Regulation that is proportionate and predictable is one that accelerates innovation,” she said.
Mrs Asante-Asiedu also called for stronger coordination among financial-sector regulators, including the BoG, National Insurance Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Pensions Regulatory Authority, to ensure that emerging digital innovations were assessed according to the risks they posed rather than which regulator had jurisdiction over them.
Building a secure digital financial ecosystem was essential to achieving financial inclusion and ensuring that the benefits of innovation reached smaller businesses and underserved communities across the country, she added.
GNA
Edited by Agnes Boye-Doe
Reporter: Benjamin Adamafio Commey
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