Ghanaian officials disclosed on Thursday that the surge in the use of digital settlement systems, including mobile payments, has also created a high risk of cyber fraud.
Daniel Sowah Klu, acting head of the Cyber and Information Security Office of the Bank of Ghana, said during the launch of the National Cyber Security Awareness Month that Ghana’s digital financial transformation continues to be remarkable.
The month-long national program is under the theme “Securing Ghana’s Digital Finance Ecosystem: Building Trust through Collaboration and Cyber Resilience,” and Klu said mobile money float balances increased by 38 percent year on year to a record 40 billion Ghana cedis (about 3.4 billion U.S. dollars) in June 2026, held across more than 84 million registered mobile phone accounts.
In that same month, the official who read the speech on behalf of the bank’s governor, Johnson Asiama, said mobile money platforms processed close to 493 billion cedis in transactions, “moving through a network of registered agents that, for the first time, surpassed one million.”
“That same growth, however, has widened the surface area for those who seek to exploit it. Between January and July this year alone, the Cyber Security Authority’s Computer Emergency Response Team recorded close to 3,900 cybersecurity incidents, of which nearly half were linked to online fraud,” he disclosed.
Within the regulated financial sector, fraud cases reported by banks and payment service providers rose by roughly 48 percent in 2025 over the previous year, with the value of funds placed at risk exceeding 100 million cedis. Among payment service providers, he said electronic fraud incidents climbed by over 50 percent, and the value at risk nearly doubled.
Klu noted that the Bank of Ghana has issued a revised Cyber and Information Security Directive 2026, replacing the framework relied on since 2018, and that the bank would continue to strengthen its regulatory guardrails for the institutions it supervises.
Divine Selasie Agbeti, Director-General of the Ghana Cyber Security Authority, noted that public services in Ghana were becoming increasingly digital, with the transformation creating enormous opportunities.
Agbeti highlighted, “But every digital opportunity also creates a potential attack surface: the same technology that enables a trader in Accra to receive payment instantly can be exploited by a criminal to commit fraud. The same artificial intelligence that can improve customer service can be weaponized to create convincing impersonations, phishing messages, and sophisticated social engineering attacks.”
“The future of finance is digital. Unfortunately, so is the future of financial crime. That is why cybersecurity can no longer be treated solely as an IT problem; it is an economic security issue. It is a national security issue, and increasingly, it is a matter of public trust,” he stressed.
The official urged, “I invite every financial institution, financial technology company, telecommunications company, technology provider, public institution, and citizen to join us through National Cyber Security Awareness Month 2026. Let us secure every transaction. Let us strengthen every institution. Let us protect every citizen.”