The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Ghana, has admitted 11 Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) into its regulatory sandbox to enable them to pilot their products and services in a controlled environment under the regulatory oversight of the Commission.
This is in keeping with the mandate of SEC said to operationalize the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025 (Act 1154). The sandbox allows the regulator to closely monitor the operations of the 11 operators over a period before allowing them to become fully operational.
The eleven VASPs admitted into the sandbox are as follows:
- Blu Penguin
- HanyPay
- Goldbod
- Africoin
- Hyro Exchange Gh Ltd.
- HSB Global
- Koinkoin
- Whitebits
- Vaulta
- Xchain and
- Bsystem Ltd.
In a statement,
Per the SEC statement, the regulatory sandbox period will last for a period of (12) twelve months. But it noted that after the first six months of the 12-month period, VASPs, whose products and services are market ready and have complied with all regulatory requirements, may be transitioned to their respective activity-based license/registration.
However, VASPs whose products and services are not market ready within the first six (6) months may be allowed to continue the pilot of their products for the remaining six months.
This sandbox period, the statement said, aims to support responsible innovation while strengthening investor protection, market integrity, and compliance with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing standards.
“Lessons from the pilot will inform future policy and licensing frameworks for virtual assets services,” the statement said. “This will enable the SEC to gather data to develop Guidelines for the various activity-based licensing categories.”
The statement said SEC will publish the Guidelines and open up the space for licensing/registration for all VASPs to apply to be licensed under the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025 (Act 1154).
Founder and CEO of Hanypay, Prof. Hugh Aryee told Techfocus24 that “being in the SEC sandbox means Hanypay is officially being tested under government regulatory supervision as a potential licensed fintech and virtual asset platform – this is good news for AKL Lumi.”
