Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr. Johnson Pandit Asiama, has disclosed that efforts are underway to integrate payment systems across Africa to support businesses and improve cross-border trade within the sub-region.
Speaking at the 2026 ACI World Congress on the theme, “Elevating Markets, Empowering People,” Dr. Asiama stressed that interoperability in payment systems remains critical to Africa’s financial agenda and future economic growth.
According to him, although progress has been made in several areas of financial integration, payment and settlement systems across African countries continue to lag behind, making transactions within the continent more expensive and less efficient.
“What is lagging behind is the payments and settlements aspect. Someone says it is cheaper for example to send money across the oceans than it is to send money to another country within the sub-region. So yes we have a lot of work to do to support our people,” he stated.
Dr. Asiama explained that several initiatives are currently being pursued to address the challenge and facilitate seamless cross-border transactions for businesses and individuals.
“PAPSS is doing its bit, we also have some other related innovations that are underway. At the level of central banks we are supporting these. We do realize that integrating payment systems across the sub-region is the right way to go indeed,” he said.
The Governor further disclosed that the Bank of Ghana is collaborating with the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat to explore the use of stable coins and other digital innovations to improve cross-border payment systems and support trade across the continent.
“For us we are working with AfCFTA for example because we realize we can use stable coins for example to address the cross-border payment issue which will support the work of AfCFTA. We are working on some of those fronts. We did a sandbox environment to start with so as to be able to establish those platforms to support greater integration across the sub-region,” he added.
Source: citinewsroom.com
