How July's national conversations put financial inclusion and cybersecurity on the same table but left out the denominator in the equation

If July 2026 will be remembered for anything in Ghana's digital economy discourse, it is this: the sector finally said out loud what everyone in the industry already knew. Ghana's mobile money and digital payments boom has outrun public confidence in it, and unless that gap is closed, the country's cash-lite ambitions could stall.

That was the common thread connecting two of the month's most consequential media-led interventions — the JoyNews/Multimedia Group Digital Economy Forum on trust and fraud, and the Ecobank–JoyNews Business Financial Dialogue on financial inclusion. Different venues, different speakers, but one shared conclusion: trust is not a soft add-on to digital finance. It is the currency on which the entire system runs. However, currency is only useful for what it can buy, and neither conversation fully closed the loop on what all this trust-building and inclusion is ultimately meant to achieve: more commerce, moving faster and more safely, within Ghana and across its borders.

The trust crisis, named

On July 27, JoyNews and the Multimedia Group, in partnership with Hubtel, convened the inaugural Digital Economy Forum under a theme that did not mince words: “The Trust Crisis: Why Fraud Is Holding Back Ghana's Digital Economy.” The forum brought together regulators, banks, fintechs, mobile money providers, cybersecurity experts, academics, agents, and everyday users for what was billed as a documentary-led national dialogue on fraud and digital trust.

The figures presented underscored the scale of the challenge. Ghana now has more than 80 million registered mobile money accounts, with over 26 million active every 90 days. In 2025 alone, close to 10 billion digital financial transactions, valued at more than GH¢4.5 trillion, were processed. Participants warned that this rapid growth has created a parallel opportunity for fraud, including impersonation scams, phishing schemes, cloned websites, and fake customer service channels that increasingly target ordinary users.

The warning was far from hypothetical. Days earlier, the Bank of Ghana's 2025 Fraud Report confirmed that reported fraud cases across banks, specialised deposit-taking institutions, and payment service providers increased from 16,733 in 2024 to 24,778 in 2025 — a 48 per cent rise. Notably, more than 97 per cent of these cases occurred within the payment service provider space, the fastest-growing and least-consolidated segment of the ecosystem. The Bank of Ghana's Head of Fintech and Innovation, Owureku Asare, summed up the challenge succinctly: growth brings new risks, and confidence in the system depends on customers trusting that their money is safe and accessible.

The forum's communiqué translated this concern into a concrete agenda: onboarding fintechs and dedicated electronic money issuers onto the FinSec Security Operations Centre; establishing a unified fintech and PSP association; strengthening real-time fraud intelligence sharing; investing in public education; and enhancing police capacity to investigate digital fraud. The common thread running through these recommendations was coordination. Ghana's fragmented response to fraud, with each institution defending its own perimeter, is itself part of the trust problem.

Financial inclusion reframed as a trust issue

A day later, on July 28, a different but related conversation unfolded at the Ecobank Auditorium during the inaugural Ecobank–JoyNews Business Financial Dialogue. While the forum focused on fraud, this dialogue examined access and inclusion, yet arrived at a remarkably similar conclusion.

Henry Ampong, Ecobank Ghana's Executive Director of Corporate and Investment Banking, argued that digital innovation in Africa has moved beyond simply changing how banking services are delivered. It is now redefining who gets to participate in the economy. He traced Ecobank's inclusion journey from its mobile-first Express Account and USSD banking services to a digital banking app actively used by more than 800,000 customers in Ghana. He also highlighted innovations such as cardless e-token withdrawals and instant virtual cards designed to make online transactions safer.

However, Ampong acknowledged that the inclusion story remains unfinished. Millions across Africa still lack access to formal financial services. He identified affordability, digital literacy, trust, and infrastructure as the key barriers, placing trust alongside cost and connectivity as a critical constraint. His proposed solution echoed the recommendations from the Digital Economy Forum: collaboration among banks, regulators, telecom operators, fintechs, and sustained public engagement.

Two forums, one diagnosis

Taken together, the two events paint a coherent picture of Ghana's digital economy in mid-2026. The infrastructure for scale already exists: tens of millions of mobile money accounts, trillions of cedis moving through digital payment rails, and an expanding network of banking applications and agents.

What remains underdeveloped is the connective tissue of trust — the assurance that transactions will reach their intended destination, that customer service representatives are genuine, and that users' data and money are secure enough to justify moving away from cash.

By placing fraud and inclusion on the national agenda within the same month and under the broader objective of strengthening the digital economy, the Multimedia Group and its partners effectively demonstrated that these are not separate policy issues. A financial system cannot be truly inclusive if newly onboarded users are also the most vulnerable to fraud. Likewise, it cannot be genuinely secure if anti-fraud measures leave underserved populations excluded. Trust is the bridge connecting both objectives.

The missing piece: Why any of this is being built

Despite the depth of both conversations, neither fully articulated what arguably gives all these efforts their ultimate purpose. Payment systems, mobile money accounts, security operations centres, KYC requirements, and consumer protection regimes are not ends in themselves. They are enabling infrastructure.

What they are meant to enable is commerce.

A mobile money account has little value sitting idle. Its value emerges when a trader pays a supplier, a farmer receives payment for produce, or a small business accepts online orders instead of losing sales due to cash limitations or geographical distance.

A secure digital payment corridor matters because it allows a market woman in Begoro to transact with a buyer in Nkoranza — and eventually with buyers in Lagos or Abidjan — without either party needing to physically move money or rely solely on personal trust.

Financial inclusion and fraud prevention are therefore not the destination; they are prerequisites. The destination is trade — more of it, conducted faster, more affordably, more securely, and across more borders than a cash-based, paper-heavy system could ever permit.

This distinction is not merely semantic. It fundamentally changes how success should be measured. A trust-recovery programme assessed solely by the number of fraud cases resolved, or an inclusion strategy measured only by account registrations and app downloads, could technically succeed while missing the broader objective. If these efforts do not result in more goods and services changing hands, more SMEs reaching new markets, and more cross-border transactions settling smoothly under frameworks such as the AfCFTA and its Protocol on Digital Trade, then the larger purpose remains unfulfilled.

Digital infrastructure is not built because connectivity is inherently valuable. It is built because trade transforms connectivity into growth, jobs, and revenue. That is the investment case regulators, banks, telecom operators, governments, and development partners ultimately make, and it should remain the benchmark against which their commitments are evaluated.

Put differently, Ghana does not need a trusted digital economy for its own sake. It needs a trusted digital economy because trust enables commerce to move at the speed and scale required by the country's growth ambitions. Every recommendation emerging from the Digital Economy Forum — from shared fraud intelligence and a unified PSP association to stronger consumer protection — and every inclusion metric highlighted by Ecobank should ultimately be judged by a single question:

Does it make buying, selling, and trading easier, cheaper, and safer within Ghana and across its borders?

If the answer is no, then the intervention may be optimising for the wrong outcome, regardless of how impressive it appears in isolation.

Policy recommendations: Closing the loop

If trust is the prerequisite and trade is the destination, then the missing piece from both July conversations is clear accountability for ensuring the two remain connected.

1. The Ministry of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry should lead ecosystem coordination.

The Digital Economy Forum and the Ecobank–JoyNews Dialogue each assembled an impressive but incomplete set of stakeholders. What remains absent is a central institutional anchor responsible for keeping commerce — not merely payments security — at the heart of the conversation. The Ministry is well positioned to convene regulators such as the Bank of Ghana, National Communications Authority, and Cyber Security Authority alongside banks, payment service providers, mobile network operators, e-commerce platforms, and development partners around a shared trade-oriented digital economy agenda.

2. Harmonise and align resources rather than working in silos.

Ghana is confronting a sophisticated and rapidly evolving fraud threat with fragmented institutional responses. With resources already stretched, duplicating monitoring systems, public education campaigns, and intelligence-sharing mechanisms is inefficient. Pooling data, budgets, and technical expertise across institutions would deliver greater impact than isolated efforts.

3. Fast-track a consumer protection bill with strong digital provisions.

Ghana's consumer protection framework has not kept pace with the shift toward digital-first commerce and finance. A modern bill addressing digital consumer rights, liability for fraud, disclosure requirements, and dispute-resolution mechanisms for mobile money and e-commerce transactions would provide the legal foundation needed to support broader coordination efforts.

4. Introduce a trust seal or certification framework.

A recognisable regulator-backed trust seal for platforms, merchants, and payment service providers that meet defined security and consumer protection standards would help users quickly distinguish legitimate actors from fraudulent ones. Combined with public education campaigns, such a certification system could make abstract regulatory standards tangible and visible at the point of transaction.

These measures, among others, would help transform the momentum generated by July's discussions into a system characterised by clear ownership, coordinated resources, legal backing, and visible trust mechanisms — all focused on the ecosystem's ultimate objective: enabling more commerce under safer and more secure conditions.

Trust may have been the most frequently discussed and measurable concept throughout July's conversations, but trust is not the end goal. Commerce is.

If Ghana gets that sequencing right — supported by clear institutional leadership, resource alignment, stronger consumer protection, trust certification mechanisms, digital literacy initiatives, and secure infrastructure — then investments in inclusion and security will follow a coherent and purposeful logic.

If not, July's conversations risk becoming a well-attended discussion about trust for its own sake, rather than laying the foundation for the trade-driven growth the country ultimately needs.