Bank of Ghana has emerged as winner of the “Best FinTech Policy of the Year” at the 6th Innovation and Excellence Awards, which formed part of this year’s Connected Banking West Africa Summit.
The award was in recognition of the various policies of the Central Bank that have fostered digital financial services, accelerated financial inclusion and positioned Ghana as a preferred destination for FinTech business in the West African sub-region.
Key among the policies is the much touted Regulatory and Innovation Sandbox and the yet to be rolled out Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) known as the eCedi.
Industry watchers and pundits are of the opinion that Ghana’s FinTech ecosystem is poised to grow at an accelerated pace following the establishment of the Regulatory Sandbox to serve as a regulatory forbearing environment to nurture innovative financial products and business models.
Indeed, some key industry players have hinted of coming up with on a unified platform to be tested in the Regulatory Sandbox before going to market soon.
The Connected Banking Summit is an annual FinTech industry flagship programme of the African continent organised by the International Center for Strategic Alliances (ICSA).
The summit brings together captains of the financial service industry, FinTechs, policy makers, regulators and technology service providers to dialogue and exchange ideas on emerging trends in FinTech and deploy technology to engender inclusive and safe financial services in Africa.
The following is the list of award winners this years:
1. Best Bank in Wealth Management – Standard Chartered Bank
2. Best Bank for SMEs – FNB Bank
3. Best Investment Bank – Stanbic Bank Ghana
4. Best Remittance Bank – United Bank for Africa
5. Best Bank in Trade Finance – Bank of Africa
6. Best Bank in Cybersecurity- UMB
7. Emerging Digital Bank – Prudential Bank
8. Best use of technology for innovation – CBG
9. Best Digitalization and Automation Vendor – Temenos
10. Excellence in Customer Experience – First Atlantic Bank
11. CIO of the Year – Emmanuel Mokar – Access Bank
12. Best Cashless Initiative- MasterCard
13. Best Digital Transformation Provider – Accenture
14. Best Bank in Retail Banking – Absa Bank
15. Best Digital Bank – GTBank
16. Best Mobile Money Wallet – MTN MoMo
17. Best Digital Banking Personality – Abdoul Aziz Faye, Ecobank Group CIO
18. Best Bank – ECOBANK Ghana
19. Excellence in Banking Innovation – Republic Bank
20. Best Tech Solution Provider – Huawei
21. Best Chief Info Security Officer – Roland Martey, GCB Bank
22. Best CTO – Kwesi Acheampong – Fidelity
23. Digital Disrupter of the Year
24. Best CEO – John Kofi Adomako – GCB Bank
25. Best Fintech Policy – Bank of Ghana (Regulatory and Innovation Sandbox)
