Security & Compliance

Bank-grade by construction — not as a marketing line.

We move real money for thin-margin traders under multiple central-bank regimes. Correctness, security and compliance are the engineering bar for the whole platform, held strictest on the money paths.

Bank of Ghana-regulated posture · PAPSS participant

Regulatory posture

Where we stand, stated plainly

No vague claims. Here is our licensing position and how it extends as we open new corridors.

Sankofa Trade regulatory facts
Anchor regulatorBank of Ghana
Operating modelPartner-bank origination + direct licensing in progress
Data protectionGhana Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) — DPC registered
AML / KYCRisk-based programme aligned to FATF & BoG AML/CFT guidelines
Settlement railsPAPSS (Pan-African Payment & Settlement System) + mobile money

Each expansion corridor requires independent licensing review — the CBN for Nigeria, the BCEAO/UEMOA framework for Côte d’Ivoire — before that corridor is activated. See the full regulatory licensing & disclosures page.

KYC & AML

Know your trader, watch every flow

Screening and monitoring built into the product, with a human in the loop where it matters.

  • Identity verification against national ID systems — Ghana Card at launch, BVN/NIN and equivalents per corridor.
  • Sanctions and watchlist screening at onboarding and on settlement above a configurable threshold.
  • Automated suspicious-activity detection with mandatory human review — flags escalate to a Compliance Officer, never auto-close.
  • A documented case workflow (open → review → cleared / reported / blocked) with a full audit trail.
  • Suspicious Transaction Reports filed with the Financial Intelligence Centre where the law requires.
Data protection

Your data, held to the law

Structured around the Ghana Data Protection Act and extensible to each corridor's regime as we expand.

  • Encryption in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest for all financial and personal data.
  • Parameterised database access only — no dynamically-built SQL anywhere in the money paths.
  • Row-level security in the database, so a Ghana-scoped officer cannot see Nigeria-scoped applicant data, and vice versa.
  • Immutable, append-only audit logging of every financial action and every access to personal data.
  • Data residency selected per operating country against that central bank’s sovereignty expectations before a corridor goes live.

Read the full Privacy Policy for lawful basis, data-subject rights and retention.

Settlement integrity

PAPSS — settled between central banks, not through a middleman

Cross-border payments run over the Pan-African Payment & Settlement System, so a Ghana–Nigeria trade settles in local currency between the two central banks. No dollar correspondent chain means fewer parties touching the money, a shorter path to reconcile, and no hidden FX spread. Our ledger reconciles against PAPSS and mobile-money confirmations continuously, and any mismatch is flagged for Settlement Operations — money moving is never assumed, it is verified.
  • Double-entry ledger: debits equal credits before anything commits.
  • Automated reconciliation against every rail, with exception review.
  • Idempotency keys on every money movement — a retry never double-pays.
Verifiable trust

The credentials behind the product

  • Bank of Ghana

    Partner-bank model

    Facilities originated with Bank of Ghana–licensed institutions while direct licensing is pursued.

  • KYC / AML

    FATF-aligned

    Risk-based identity verification and transaction monitoring on every trader and counterparty.

  • PAPSS

    Instant settlement

    Pan-African Payment & Settlement System — local-currency, near-instant cross-border settlement.

  • Act 843

    Data Protection

    Registered under Ghana’s Data Protection Act, 2012; data stays in-region and encrypted.

Due diligence?

We'll walk your risk and compliance teams through it

Capital partners and regulators can request our full security and compliance briefing.