Bank of Ghana Inaugurates Multi-Agency Committee to Scale Crypto & VASP Regulation by 2027
The Bank of Ghana and the SEC inaugurate the Virtual Assets Coordinating Committee to drive implementation of the VASP Act, sandbox pilots, and crypto oversight by 2027.
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What to Know:
- Ghana inaugurated a five-agency Virtual Assets Coordinating Committee on August 25, 2026, in Accra.
- The committee unites the Bank of Ghana, SEC, Finance Ministry, Cyber Security Authority, and Financial Intelligence Centre.
- Full licensing under Ghana’s Virtual Asset Service Providers Act is still targeted for 2027.
The VACC Mandate: From Legislation to Execution
The Bank of Ghana and the Securities and Exchange Commission inaugurated the Virtual Assets Coordinating Committee (VACC) in Accra on August 25, 2026.
The seven-member committee unites five key state institutions: the BoG, SEC, Ministry of Finance, Cyber Security Authority (CSA), and Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC).
Central Bank Governor Johnson Pandit Asiama spoke at the integration, framing the committee as the statutory platform for coordinating regulatory and supervisory action.
“Effective coordination, timely information sharing, and a shared commitment to safeguarding the integrity of our financial system will be essential if we are to build a virtual asset ecosystem that is safe, well-regulated, and supportive of innovation and inclusion.”
The committee’s mandate covers information sharing across agencies and the management of systemic risk as crypto activity increasingly touches the formal financial system. It will also use lessons from ongoing sandbox testing to help frame the licensing guidelines the BoG and SEC are still drafting.
This move is Ghana’s regulators transitioning from primary legislation to joint supervisory implementation of its Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025 (Act 1154) with a 2027 full-licensing target.
The Sandbox & Banking Infrastructure Mosaic
The inauguration of the VACC builds on a series of deliberate steps taken by Ghanaian regulators to integrate digital assets into the formal economy.
Ghana’s SEC opened its virtual asset regulatory sandbox in March 2026 with 11 firms, including WhiteBIT, KoinKoin, Vaulta, and gold custodian GoldBod. By late August, the cohort had expanded to 20 companies.
New entrants into the cohort include Yellow Card Ghana, GFX Brokers piloting tokenised Treasury bills, One Africa Securities testing tokenised bonds, and the Ghana Commodities Exchange operating in the virtual asset exchange category.
The spread of activities, from gold-backed tokens to trade-finance instruments to straightforward crypto exchanges, illustrates why a single regulator wasn’t enough. The SEC Director-General, James Klutse Avedzi, who was present at the inauguration, emphasised this point.
“Virtual assets do not respect the neat boundaries between securities regulation, banking, payments and financial intelligence. A single virtual asset can touch all three at once. If this is left uncoordinated, it creates blind spots.”
Banking infrastructure is catching up in parallel. Universal Merchant Bank recently became the first bank in Ghana to win joint approval from the BoG and SEC to offer virtual accounts to eligible virtual asset businesses. This gives sandboxed VASPs a regulated on-ramp to mainstream banking rails that crypto firms elsewhere often struggle to access.
Alongside the formal committee structure, the Bank of Ghana has also engaged the Digital Assets Association of Ghana in industry dialogue, signalling regulators are building this framework with input from the sector rather than through unilateral rulemaking alone.
Why Ghana Is Accelerating VASP Rules
Ghana’s 2024 National AML/CFT/PF Risk Assessment flagged fast-growing, organic crypto adoption and its tightening links to the formal banking system as a risk requiring active oversight.
This led directly to the passage of the VASP Act (Act 1154) in 2025, establishing a statutory mandate. The momentum has accelerated in 2026 with the launch of the VACC alongside the active 20-entity SEC sandbox. All of these laid the groundwork for the full operationalisation and formal licensing rules by the 2027 target.
This aligns with Ghana’s broader interest in staying compliant with Financial Action Task Force standards. Proactive, coordinated VASP supervision reduces the likelihood of the kinds of gaps that can trigger FATF greylisting, thereby raising the cost and friction of Ghana’s international financial transactions well beyond the crypto sector.
Regional Snapshot: Ghana vs Nigeria
Ghana’s approach stands in contrast to Nigeria’s. Despite the existence of a sandbox, Nigeria’s SEC’s crypto framework imposes steep capital requirements and stricter licensing hurdles for crypto firms.
Ghana has instead run a low-barrier, sandbox-first model with a defined path for sandbox graduates to transition early to permanent activity-based licenses. For startups and foreign investors weighing where to build in West Africa, that structure positions Ghana as a more accessible testing ground.
