Licensing requirements deadline further extended for payment service providers

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has further extended the deadline to the licensing requirement that the payment service providers are to meet, in order to operationalize the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019 (Act 987).

This extension was made known in a statement issued by the Bank on Monday, March 30, 2020.

The first of the deadline extension is the deadline for meeting the minimum capital requirements by all existing Payment Service Providers and Electronic Money Issuers as well as banks and specialised deposit-taking institutions is extended from June 30, 2020 to December 31, 2020.

The deadline for meeting the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) and ISO 27001 certification requirements has been extended from June 2020 to December 2020.

The Central bank indicates that on account of security concerns, all existing financial technology firms that intend to integrate with GhIPSS are required to meet GhIPSS’ minimum security and control requirements by December 31, 2020.

The regulator has also extended the deadline for meeting the minimum infrastructure and governance requirements from June 2020 to December 2020.

To operationalize the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019 (Act 987), the central bank on September 12, 2019 issued a notice on the minimum capital requirements, permissible activities, fees, governance and systems requirements for Payment Service Providers and Electronic Money Issuers.