Ghana’s Central Bank Has Revoked Zeepay’s Licence

Ghana’s central bank has revoked the electronic money licence of fintech firm Zeepay, saying the company repeatedly violated regulatory requirements and failed to comply with directives aimed at protecting customer funds, marking the latest setback for one of West Africa’s best-known payments companies.

The Bank of Ghana said on Tuesday it had withdrawn Zeepay Ghana Ltd’s Dedicated Electronic Money Issuer (DEMI) licence with immediate effect under the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019, citing multiple regulatory breaches and the company’s persistent failure to comply with regulatory directives and the terms of its licence.

According to the central bank, Zeepay issued electronic money without maintaining the corresponding cash reserves required to back customer balances, creating what it described as a negative variance that exposed customers and the country’s payment system to financial risk.

The regulator said Zeepay also failed to comply with instructions to inject sufficient funds to fully back customers’ electronic money balances and ignored directives to wind down its electronic money issuance business.

The regulator said the continued operation of Zeepay under its DEMI licence poses a threat to the stability of the payment system.

The decision caps months of legal and financial challenges for the company, which was founded in 2014 and expanded into more than 20 African markets by offering cross-border remittance and mobile money services.

In April, Ghana’s Commercial Division of the High Court ordered Zeepay and its founder and Chief Executive Andrew Takyi-Appiah to jointly pay more than $11.6 million to a customer over unexecuted fund transfers.

The court also held Takyi-Appiah personally liable after finding that a substantial portion of the disputed funds had been deposited into his personal mobile money wallet rather than solely into corporate accounts, according to the ruling.

Zeepay has disputed media reports on the case, saying the judgment is under appeal.

The company had previously reported processing more than 10 million transactions worth over $3 billion in 2023 and last year secured an $18 million debt facility to support its expansion.

However, governance concerns have intensified in recent months.

In February, the company’s chief financial officer resigned, alleging “material weaknesses and abuse” in treasury operations in a letter copied to the Economic and Organised Crime Office and the Bank of Ghana, according to local media reports.

Audit firm Ernst & Young also withdrew from Zeepay’s 2024 audit, citing concerns over the quality and reliability of information provided, according to reports.

Separately, creditor Obsidian Achernar Ltd has filed a petition seeking to wind up Zeepay over an alleged unpaid debt of $1.22 million. In Barbados, the central bank suspended the licence of Zeepay’s subsidiary Zeemoney, which subsequently applied for voluntary liquidation.

The Bank of Ghana had also fined Zeepay and suspended its foreign exchange licence in 2023 over separate regulatory breaches.

The central bank advised Zeepay wallet holders, including agents and merchants, to contact the company for assistance. Under Ghana’s Payment Systems and Services Act, a payment service provider whose licence has been revoked must arrange to repay customers’ electronic money balances within 10 days.

The Digital Chamber, an industry association representing licensed payment service providers, said the action concerned a single institution and should not be interpreted as reflecting the broader health of Ghana’s digital financial services sector.

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