Prudent steps taken to tackle cyber attacks in financial sector – BoG

The Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr Ernest Addison, has said that the strong regulatory and supervisory frameworks underpinning Ghana’s payment systems has enhanced the financial digitization process.

However, he said, digitisation has come with risks which threaten customer trust and has the potential to unwind the gains of acceptability of digital products and services.

He explained that issues of cybercrime, scams, phishing, data and privacy breaches, digital illiteracy and unresponsiveness to customer complaints pose serious threats to consumer confidence in digital financial services.

In view of this, the Bank has issued directives, regulations, policies and guidelines on Cyber Security to assist market players’ deal with such threats, he added.

“It is important to note that the burden of security awareness is not only on market players. Indeed, the emergence of new and digital financial solutions has introduced significant complexities in regulation and supervision as well.

“Therefore, discussions on creating an enabling environment for financial sector digitization must also focus on regulatory technology (RegTech) and supervisory technology (SupTech).

“Presently, the manual supervisory tools are ineffective in the supervision of digital financial service ecosystem due to its dependence on digital technology, high frequency and dense data, fast transactions, complex and evolving systems.

“Consequently, the Bank has invested in SupTech tools to exercise effective oversight and supervision of digital financial services and reduce the burden of reporting on regulated entities.

“An online reporting analytic surveillance system (ORASS) has been set up to facilitate submission and improve analysis of prudential and other regulatory returns.

“A complementing supervisory intelligence tool that accepts granular data which are analysed for patterns and trends for timely evidence-based policy interventions is also on-board. An additional Chatbot project, which is an automated consumer complaints management system is in the offing and will help address market conduct concerns,” he said.