Ghana Stock Exchange assesses blockchain to modernise capital market
The exchange is weighing digital assets and distributed ledger systems to improve trading, ownership records and settlement.
The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) is assessing blockchain and distributed ledger technologies to improve trading, securities ownership and settlement, its Managing Director, Ms Abena Amoah, said at the exchange's 36th anniversary celebration in Accra. The exchange said it would not adopt new technologies simply because they were fashionable and would ensure each innovation protected investors' assets.
Ms Amoah said the exchange had already embraced technology, pointing to the introduction of electronic trading in 2007, which let stockbrokers trade from different locations, and the digitisation of share ownership, which removed the need for physical share certificates. The exchange is particularly interested in technologies that give investors low-cost access to investment platforms, secure holding of securities and easy verification of ownership, and she stressed that investor confidence must not be compromised.
Frank Sekyere Tawiah, chief executive of Core Afrique Investment Limited, warned in the keynote address that Ghana risked losing control of its capital market to foreign digital investment platforms if it failed to adapt to blockchain and tokenised securities. He urged the GSE and other market institutions to explore a parallel digital securities market while keeping the existing trading system.