The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has suspended the operations of the financial remittance service TapTap Send, citing violations of the country’s regulatory framework. The suspension, effective November 8, is the result of a breach of the Foreign Exchange Act, 2006, which governs payment services in Ghana.
TapTap Send’s “cedi remittance wallet” ran afoul of the Act, BoG said in the suspension notice shared to all commercial banks, Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS), and mobile money operators. In a statement, the BoG noted that the breach violates Section 3(1) of Ghana’s Foreign Exchange Act, 2006 (Act 723), which requires enterprises that handle foreign exchange transactions to hold a proper licence.
The company was also accused of breaching specific provisions of the Updated Guidelines for Inward Remittance Services, which include criteria for local settlement accounts, as well as compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CFT) protocols.
This suspension is not the first of its kind in Ghana’s fintech remittance sector. In 2023, the BoG imposed bans on several foreign money transfer companies, including LemFi, Wise, XOOM, and Zeepay, after finding they were operating without the necessary licenses under the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019 (Act 987).
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Reason for the suspension, as stated bythe BoG, was that those businesses were not authorised or licensed to operate as payment service providers or electronic money issuers in Ghana.
Furthermore, the BoG alleged that the enterprises breached the country’s law that prohibits the use of foreign money as a medium of trade within the country. This forced Lemfi (previously known as Lemon Finance) to suspend its services for about a week in Ghana.
The Bank of Ghana’s Financial Markets Department has warned that any additional violations will result in severe penalties for any institution deemed to be in noncompliance.
TapTap Send did not immediately respond to Techpression’s requests for comments on the matter.