The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged Ghana to strengthen its regulatory and supervisory framework for crypto markets before new rules take effect in December 2026, warning that existing guidelines do not yet provide comprehensive oversight of a rapidly expanding market.

Ghana is the fifth-largest crypto market in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a technical assistance report published by the IMF in September 2026. The fund estimates that between 8% and 17% of the country's population has bought or sold cryptocurrency, with annual transactions totaling approximately $21 billion — the scale of adoption behind the fund's push to have oversight in place before the regime takes effect.

Stablecoin usage is growing rapidly, driven mainly by crypto trading and inflation hedging. The IMF also noted that businesses are increasingly using stablecoins for cross-border settlement, although retail remittance use remains limited. Together, those usage patterns sketch the market Ghana's regulators are preparing to oversee.

Legal Powers in Place, Rules Still Missing

The IMF said Ghana's Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, passed in December 2025, gives the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC Ghana) powers over different parts of the market. These include stablecoin issuance, wallets, payments, trading platforms, brokers, lending, and tokenization. The Act's passage left a one-year runway to the regime's December 2026 effective date.

Despite that legal foundation, however, activity-specific rules are still missing for several segments of the market, including trading, brokerage, and lending, fund noted.

Stablecoins a Central Regulatory Focus

The report identified stablecoins as a particular regulatory focus. The IMF said Ghana's proposed framework needs clearer rules on foreign- and Cedi-denominated stablecoins, covering reserve composition, stabilization, and redemption. It recommended that users have a direct claim on issuers, with redemption at par, and that the central bank establish clearer requirements for reserve liquidity and withdrawal timeframes. As proposed, the rules would let holders redeem tokens from issuers at face value, under central-bank requirements for reserve composition, liquidity, and withdrawal timeframes.

Beyond stablecoins, the report called for stronger market-abuse and custody rules, standardized reporting, activity-based licensing, and closer coordination between the Bank of Ghana and SEC Ghana.

The IMF also advised regulators to begin monitoring crypto-market inter-connections before the new regime becomes fully operational, including through blockchain analytics and market studies.

From Drafting Rules to Operational Readiness

The IMF acknowledged that Ghana has made progress in building its regulatory framework and policy sandboxes, but said authorities now need to move from drafting rules to operational readiness as the licensing regime approaches. With the December 2026 start date fixed, the items to watch are the issuance of the outstanding trading, brokerage, and lending rules and the build-out of the inter-connection monitoring the fund recommends.

The assessment was produced under the IMF's technical assistance on the regulation and supervision of crypto markets and activities in Ghana.

Source: BitcoinKE