Accra, Ghana//-The Central Securities Depository (CSD), Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), and the Bank of Ghana (BoG) today unveiled the InvestorConnect App, a new digital platform allowing investors to open accounts, verify their identity via Ghana Card, and view their securities and transaction history directly.
For investors, this means real, direct access to their own records, no more relying solely on someone else to tell them what they own- the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Johnson Asiama, said at the launch in Accra.
He was quick to add: “Confidence in a market starts with investors being able to see and trust their own holdings”.
Dr Asiama who was the guest of honour at the launch emphasised that confidence supports a deeper capital market, saying: “Ghana cannot finance long-term growth from short-term deposits and bank credit alone.”
A deeper, more transparent capital market gives businesses and government access to long-term capital, supporting savings, investment, and sustainable growth, according to him.
The Chief Executive Officer of Central Securities Depository, Joseph O. Lamptey described that launch of the app as a transformational journey of the Central Securities Depository.
He explained that InvestConnect is significant because it gives investors a more direct and convenient digital interface with the CSD.
It enables investors to access information on their securities holdings and other services, and it allows prospective investors to initiate the process of opening a securities account digitally.
Our ambition is simple to reduce some of the barriers that may discourage people taking their first step into the capital market, Mr Lamptey said in his welcome address.
“This objective is already resonating with the investing public. A few days after the InvestConnect went live, I came across a LinkedIn post by a young Ghanaian investor, he observed that InvestConnect makes access to the capital market more convenient and accessible”, he recounted.
“We want to democratise access to Ghana’s investment landscape. Whether an investor is in an urban centre or in the farther rural community in Ghana, location will become less of a barrier to participating in the market.
Also, we want that accessibility to extend beyond our borders to Ghanaian in the diaspora and to international investors seeking to engage in Ghana’s capital market”.
Mr Lamptey observed: “Over the past few years, we have undertaken a major upgrade of their systems and infrastructure with one core objective to build a modern, resilient and a efficient security market infrastructure that meets the evolving need of Ghana’s capital market”.
That journey he noted has seen the CSD modernised their core depository system, strengthen their integration with other market infrastructures, expand their service capabilities, improve the efficiency and resilience of their operations, and increasingly their transformation is about the investor.
The CSD CEO also noted that digital access must go hand-in-hand with investor education, financial literacy and investor protection, stressing that InvestorConnect is not the end of their transformational agenda, it is part of a wider programme of initiatives that they are pursuing.
To this end, Mr Lamptey revealed that they are working towards greater use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to enable more seamless connectivity between CSD and the market, financial institutions, fintechs, and other service providers.
This according to him, would allow services and data to be integrated more efficiently across the financial ecosystem and support greater automation and innovation in the country.
“Today, we are connected to the National Identification Authority (NIA) system for KYC verifications of Ghanaian investors.We are also progressing work towards becoming the fourth CSD in Africa issue legal entity identifiers for companies in Ghana”.
In her remarks, the MD of GSE and Chair of the Steering Committee of the Systems Upgrade and Transformation Programme, Madam Abena Amoah disclosed the new app which can be downloaded on App Store and Google Play went live in June last year and it is now support nearly 1.7 million investor accounts up from near six hundred and forty-seven thousand, a decade ago, two hundred and seventy-five depository participants.
“That progress is significant but our ambition is much greater. In a country of about thirty-one million people, the majority of which are over 18-years old. This 1.7 million securities accounts represent only one Ghana in 18”, she added.
So, Madam Amoah and her team believe InvestorConnect delivers that visibility in a secure environment. Investors can now sign in securely from everywhere and anytime to see their holdings and their transactions.
“When investors can verify their acquisitions directly trust deepens and participation grows. This platform also rests on a stronger foundation, during the migration from our previous system, we moved duplicate and dormant accounts, we improved account holder identification”.
The Director General of Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission, Dr James Klutse Avedzi, charged the CSD and its partners to ensure that the InvestorConnect app is safe and secure for the betterment of the investing public.
He said that “security enhancements are equally important, fraud prevention measures such as biometric authentication, and the use of Ghana Card, AI-powered monitoring, and transaction verification will help to protect investors”.
“As digital investment products become more accessible, robust security systems will be essential in encouraging first-time investors to participate by using realtime monitory systems and automated compliance tools”, Dr Avedzi advised.
In a short remarks before unveiling the app, the First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana. Dr Zakaria Mumuni who is also the Chairman of the CSD, said the app also gives investors a more transparent channel of accessing information from the capital market.
