In the aftermath of banking sector clean-ups across Africa, regulators must delicately balance enforcing accountability for misconduct with preserving incentives for prudent risk-taking that are integral to financial intermediation, innovation, and long-term financial deepening. Across emerging markets, recent financial sector clean-ups have restored order after periods of regulatory laxity. Banks have been closed, licences revoked, and founders sanctioned. Such interventions

In many of the world's most rigorous academic settings, it is common to hear a professor begin an answer with a disclaimer: "This is not my area of expertise." The phrase is not an admission of inadequacy. It is a signal of discipline. In such environments, knowledge is treated as bounded. Authority is respected precisely because it acknowledges its limits. The statement functions as a marker of seriousness: it tells the listener that what follows will be careful, conditional

This essay examines why a generation that inherited functioning institutions failed to transmit them to the next. It argues that Africa's current crisis is not primarily demographic, but generational: a failure of stewardship that occurred when external constraint eased and policy choice returned. The judgment is delivered calmly, but it is delivered.

Ghana's financial system works, and often impressively so. Payments move in real time. Mobile money has become second nature. Interoperability, once aspirational, is now routine. To many observers, this looks like a system that has arrived. But systems do not fail because they are unused. They fail because they are unfinished. Over the past decade, Ghana has done an admirable job regulating financial products: wallets, transfers, agent networks, lending models, and foreign-ex

Last night in New York, I encountered a contradiction that advanced economies have learned to live with, but have not learned to explain. I had just come from dinner with friends at a Japanese restaurant where fresh cuts of meat are brought to the table and cooked at one's discretion. It had been a long day of sustained intellectual work. The meal was relaxed, the conversation unforced. At some point (almost without discussion) we agreed we had had enough. A few pieces of mea

Parts 1 and 2 examined mobile money's sixteen-year journey: how adoption actually happened (not as policy predicted), and where assumptions diverged from reality.  This is Part 3: the lessons learned, and the work still ahead.  Lessons for Ghana's Next Digital Finance Chapter   Ghana now stands at the threshold of a new digital finance era, characterised by digital public infrastructure for identity, payments, and data, instant interoperable payment systems, API-based integra

The Bretton Woods institutions, and particularly the International Monetary Fund, have a long and revealing history with economic novelty in the developing world. Their reactions are often misunderstood as ideological hostility or geopolitical bias. In reality, they are better explained as institutional reflex. The International Monetary Fund is not neutral in the abstract. It is an architecture-preserving institution. Its core mandate is to: • Preserve global monetary stabi

Cash was supposed to decline. It didn't. Merchant payments were expected to boom. They didn't. Fraud outpaced protection systems. Agent liquidity became a systemic constraint. And there was a bigger misread: what fintech was supposed to deliver. Ghana delivered access at scale. It did not yet deliver depth at scale. We built access rails. We did not build value-retention rails. Digital rails didn't reshape economic behavior, they amplified it.

Between 2012 and 2016, active mobile money accounts grew by more than 700 percent. By 2024, Ghana had 72.9 million registered accounts but only 23.5 million active accounts. That gap tells the real story. Registrations reflected experimentation, while active usage reflected utility. Users didn't want sophisticated apps—they wanted simple onboarding, USSD journeys, trusted agents, and low-friction transfers. Mobile money's success came from behavioral fit, not technological so

The appeal for a unified fintech regulator is obvious: one license, one compliance regime, seamless cross-border innovation. The Ghana-Rwanda fintech passport tested this model. But uptake has been minimal, revealing an uncomfortable truth: regulatory harmonization only matters when underlying trade and financial flows already exist. Building unified regulation before building real economic integration may be solving the wrong problem first. The question is more complex

(In memory of Dave Norval, who taught me that silence is where real builders breathe.) In 2018, years after the eTranzact lesson, Nsano received its first major award. A partner we respected chose to recognize our work. It was a proud moment for the entire team, as this was one of our first and hardest-won partnerships. Cameras flashed, speeches flowed, and Nsano’s name carried through the hall. But that same night, after the applause faded, I checked my phone and noticed tha

In the early days of eTranzact, I was the marketing guy. Fresh. Ambitious. Ready to prove myself. We were operating fine. One major client—UBA. Heritage Tower, third floor. Everything running smoothly. But I couldn't understand why we weren't making “noise”. So, I did what any ambitious marketing person would do: I placed an ad in the newspaper. Then, I organized a press conference in our conference room to explain what we were about. The story was published the next day. Wit