Ghana launches the world’s first digital finance policy amid COVID-19

Ghana launches the world’s first digital finance policy amid COVID-19

May 15, 2020 | Sector: Public sector

In May, Ghana became the first country to launch a digital financial services (DFS) policy. While the policy has been years in the making, the government hopes the policy will support various measures it is taking to leverage DFS in its COVID-19 response.

Not surprisingly for a country where roughly 19 million adults have 14.5 million active mobile money accounts, Ghana’s efforts to shore up the economy include measures aimed at promoting the use of DFS.

For example, the government has removed fees for low-value remittances, relaxed transaction and wallet size limits for mobile money, made know-your-customer (KYC) transferable from SIM registrations to allow for remote mobile money account openings, and zero-rated all interoperable transactions made through the interbank switch.

Government of Ghana