By: Nana
Appiah Acquaye
The Chief Executive Officer
of Digital Chamber Ghana (DCG), Sylvia Ankomah has announced that the chamber
is exploring the establishment of a unified industry body to accommodate more
players across Ghana’s expanding fintech ecosystem.
Speaking at the just ended Fintech
Media Development Series in Accra, held under the theme “Understanding Fintech,
Building Trust, Telling the Real Story,” Ankomah said the chamber was looking
beyond its original focus on dedicated electronic money issuers to embrace more
entities operating in the fintech sector.
“We are in current
conversations on how we have a unified industry chamber. So that's something
that you should all look forward to in the near future,” she said.
Ankomah explained that the
chamber’s evolution reflected regulatory changes in the financial services
industry, including the separation of mobile money operations from
telecommunications businesses.
She said the organisation,
which had operated within the telecommunications industry for about 15 years,
evolved into an electronic money issuer chamber two years ago before becoming
known as Digital Chamber Ghana.
“So there's a clear
delineation even at the Telecoms Chamber level. And this happened two years ago
when we evolved into an electronic money issuer chamber and then today we are
known as the Digital Chamber of Ghana,” she said.
Ankomah said she represented
both the telecommunications and digital financial services industry
perspectives, adding that the chamber primarily served licensed dedicated
electronic money issuers.
She noted that the ecosystem
extended beyond electronic money issuers, with more than 70 payment service
providers currently operating in Ghana.
“The ecosystem is much
broader than that and I believe the conversations here would lend some lens to
how broad and interconnected the ecosystem is,” she said.
According to Ankomah, the
chamber was initially established to represent electronic money issuers but was
now seeking to become more inclusive as the fintech industry continued to
expand.
She said the developments
taking place across Africa and globally showed that Ghana still had significant
opportunities to deepen digital financial inclusion, despite the progress
already achieved.
