The Deputy Director General, Operations at the Securities and Exchange Commission Ghana, Mr. Mensah Thompson has outlined the operational framework that will govern the licensing and regulation of virtual asset service providers in Ghana, revealing that the Commission expects to issue its first licences before the close of the year.
Speaking with Business Outlook Africa on the back of the passage of the Virtual Assets Bill and the introduction of a regulatory sandbox, Mr. Mensah Thompson revealed that with the regulatory groundwork firmly in place, the Commission is now hopeful that it will issue the first virtual asset licences before the close of the year.
“We should issue our first virtual asset licences before the end of the year,” Mr. Mensah Thompson confirmed.
Mr. Mensah Thompson further confirmed that a key pillar of the new framework is a mandatory local partnership requirement for foreign companies seeking to operate in Ghana’s virtual assets space. Under the rules, any foreign firm applying for a Virtual Asset Service Provider licence must have a Ghanaian partner holding at least 30% equity in the business.
“For foreign companies to have a licence as a virtual asset service provider in Ghana, you must have a local partner who is a Ghanaian, who owns 30% of the business. That’s a requirement we’ve put for all,” Mr. Mensah Thompson explained.
He explained that the purpose behind the requirement is not only to ensure the mere participation of Ghanaians but also to ensure they build lasting capacity over time to take over the industry .
“This 30% is to achieve two things. One, to ensure that Ghanaians are able to participate in these businesses as equity partners to those big giants coming in. And two, to ensure that these Ghanaians build capacity so that with time, they can also now stand on their own and set up some of these entities,” he added.
Beyond ownership, the Deputy Director General added that the Commission is also working on a tiered licensing framework designed to accommodate operators of varying sizes and capacities. Mr. Mensah Thompson revealed that the structure, spanning Tier One, Tier Two, and Tier Three, will come with differentiated capital requirements to reflect the scale of each category.
“When we begin the licensing, we are thinking of also tiering the licence — Tier One, Tier Two, Tier Three — with different requirements, especially in terms of minimum capital requirement,” he said.
On the question of minimum capital requirement, Mr. Mensah Thompson stated that the bar will be set high, given the volumes of money involved in virtual asset transactions adding that the minimum capital expected of a local company is a million dollars.
“The minimum capital requirement is huge for virtual assets, because you are going to be dealing with a lot of money. For a local company, at least a million dollars,” he disclosed.
The Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025 (Act 1154) was passed into law by Parliament on December 19, 2025, and subsequently received presidential assent on December 30, 2025. The landmark legislation establishes a comprehensive legal and regulatory framework to supervise, license, and register cryptocurrency and virtual asset operations in the country.
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