Ghana’s digital payments market is expanding at scale, with 530 million transactions valued at more than GHS1.73 trillion in 2025, Bank of Ghana Governor Dr Johnson Pandit Asiama said.
Dr Asiama cited recent global surveys indicating that about 81% of Ghanaian adults own a financial account. The figures show the reach of digital payments in an economy where mobile money, electronic transfers and digital services have become part of daily commerce.
The Governor’s remarks to the reconstituted Payment Systems Advisory Committee (PSAC) made clear that transaction growth is not the same as a fully integrated or trusted system. Low adoption of GhQR, limited agent interoperability, mobile money liquidity problems, cyber threats and fraud remain unresolved challenges.
The committee, established under the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019 (Act 987), brings together the regulator and industry stakeholders to advise on payment regulation, oversight, operating standards, market development, competition, security and innovation.
The Bank’s National Payment Systems Strategy for 2025–2029 sets out four pillars for that work: an agile regulatory framework, trusted payment systems, stronger financial inclusion and robust infrastructure. The scale of GhIPSS transactions suggests the system has become economically significant.
More than GHS1.73 trillion in value passing through its platforms in a year means that reliability, speed and security are no longer simply technical concerns.
Dr Asiama warned that “persistent and growing bilateral engagements, rather than multilateral collaboration,” were worsening fragmentation and undermining integration. The statement signals the Bank’s preference for shared infrastructure and cooperation across the industry, rather than a payments market where providers build separate links that do not serve the wider system.
The challenge is to make interoperability work commercially as well as technically.
Mobile money liquidity and float management present a more immediate operational issue. Customers may have access to digital accounts but still encounter difficulty converting balances to cash or completing transactions when agents do not have adequate liquidity.
Financial inclusion, therefore, cannot be measured only by account ownership. Usage, reliability and the ability to move between digital and physical money also matter.