When it comes to regulating digital finance, Ghana’s central bank seems to have taken a leaf out of the old-school playbook: when in doubt, publish a notice. And when it comes to crypto startups, few can resist the allure of being misunderstood innovators.
On June 10, 2025, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) issued a stern notice: “Caution on Unlicensed Digital Platforms.” It called out YellowPay — a stablecoin-powered payment offering promoted by Yellow Card Financial Inc. — as an unauthorized operation in Ghana’s digital finance ecosystem. The notice also threw shade at another unfamiliar character on the scene: HanyPay, an outfit purportedly linked to the mysterious “Africa Diaspora Central Bank” (ADCB), promoting a stablecoin known as AKL Lumi.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Bank made clear that neither ADCB nor HanyPay are recognized by Ghana’s central bank, nor are they licensed to operate in the country. So far, so reasonable. But then came the awkward bit: the notice accused Yellow Card of actively collaborating with HanyPay to push this Lumi coin into the financial bloodstream.
Yellow Card, a U.S.-headquartered stablecoin payments startup with pan-African ambitions, did not take kindly to the implication. In response, it published a rebuttal long enough to make a junior compliance officer weep with admiration. The short version? “We don’t know HanyPay. We don’t like HanyPay. We have never worked with HanyPay.”
Craig Stoehr, General Counsel of Yellow Card, expressed something close to exasperation: “It is most unfortunate that the Bank of Ghana determined to publish this notice, as Yellow Card Ghana clearly communicated the above-mentioned facts to representatives of the Bank of Ghana well in advance of issuance of the notice.”
The fintech drama did not stop there. According to Yellow Card, HanyPay once tried to partner with them by initiating an onboarding process in late 2024 — the digital equivalent of introducing yourself at a cocktail party before spilling red wine on someone’s shirt. That process, Yellow Card insists, was never completed. HanyPay, apparently unwilling to let awkward facts stand in the way of good PR, issued its own triumphant press release in February 2025, falsely claiming to have sealed the deal. Yellow Card refuted the claim then, and again on June 5, in a letter addressed to the BoG.
It’s the sort of fintech misunderstanding you might expect in a sector still figuring out where the frontier between bold innovation and regulatory breach lies. Ghana’s financial sector is fertile ground for these tensions.
Yellow Card is no small operator, either. Since its launch in Nigeria in 2019, the company has reportedly facilitated more than $6 billion in transactions across Africa, holding regulatory approvals in Botswana, South Africa, and parts of Europe. It counts heavyweight investors like Coinbase and Block (formerly Square) on its cap table. The company also boasts that 45% of its workforce are women — a statistic seemingly shoehorned into every press release, no matter the subject.
But regardless of credentials, in Ghana’s regulatory house, no fintech gets to sit at the dinner table unless BoG says grace first.
The central bank is not new to this sort of stern housekeeping. Last year, BoG slapped unspecified fines on several Payment Service Providers (PSPs) for onboarding microcredit and microfinance firms without due diligence. The central bank cited breaches of the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019 (Act 987) — Ghana’s core regulatory script for the digital payments sector.
As fintech continues to cozy up to traditional financial institutions in Ghana, BoG has understandably been tightening the bolts. It recently instructed all PSPs to conduct Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) before onboarding partners. Translation: “No more mysterious collaborators, please.”
BoG’s caution may partly be driven by experience. Ghana has had its share of financial schemes gone wrong, from pyramid schemes in the analog era to crypto escapades in the digital one. The memory of the Menzgold debacle still lingers like the aftertaste of over-brewed tea.
Yet, the frustration from Yellow Card highlights another reality: the growing impatience of licensed fintech firms with what they see as hesitant or scattershot regulation. Yellow Card has been loudly supportive of formal regulatory guidelines for stablecoins, even praising the Bank of Ghana’s draft framework on digital assets, published in August 2024. It claims to have helped craft similar laws in Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, and Morocco. The company has been practically waving pom-poms in favor of clearer laws in Ghana.
Still, enthusiasm for regulation cuts both ways. While fintechs want rules, they also want them predictable, not made up on the fly. For regulators like BoG, balancing innovation with consumer protection is no easy task — particularly with global crypto promoters queuing up to “bring financial inclusion” with more enthusiasm than clear disclosures.
Meanwhile, HanyPay and its ethereal sponsor, the Africa Diaspora Central Bank, remain characters straight out of financial theater: dramatic but largely unsupported by documentation.
The unfinished regulatory tension between Yellow Card and the Bank of Ghana underscores a wider dilemma for emerging economies grappling with digital finance: how to encourage innovation without accidentally letting in financial chaos by the back door.