By Ashiadey Dotse
Director-General of the Cyber Security Authority (CSA), Divine Selase Agbeti, has called for stronger collaboration among financial institutions, telecommunications companies, fintechs, regulators and law enforcement agencies to protect Ghana’s growing digital economy.
He said cybersecurity could no longer be treated as only an information technology issue but must be seen as an economic and national security concern.
Mr Agbeti made the call at the launch of the 2026 National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) under the theme, “Securing Ghana’s Digital Finance Ecosystem: Building Trust Through Collaboration and Cyber Resilience.” On Thursday, October 1, 2026.
He said Ghana’s growing use of mobile money, digital banking, online shopping and digital public services had created new opportunities but had also increased the country’s exposure to cybercrime.
According to him, the same technology that allows people to transfer money and conduct business easily could also be exploited by criminals to commit fraud.
He also warned that artificial intelligence was being used to create convincing impersonations, phishing messages and sophisticated social engineering attacks.
Mr Agbeti said the impact of cybercrime went beyond financial losses because victims could lose confidence in digital platforms.
“When a Ghanaian loses money to cyber fraud, we lose more than money. We lose confidence,” he said.
He stressed that there could be no sustainable digital economy without digital trust and no digital trust without cybersecurity.
The Director-General also called for more effective information sharing among institutions, saying cybercriminals often exploit gaps between organisations.
He said banks, fintech companies, telecommunications operators, regulators, technology companies and law enforcement agencies must share threat intelligence quickly to prevent attacks and reduce losses.
“Cybersecurity cannot be a competition between defenders,” he said.
Mr Agbeti said the real measure of collaboration was how quickly institutions could detect threats, share information, respond to attacks and recover from them.
He also urged boards and chief executives of financial and digital institutions to take greater responsibility for cybersecurity.
He said cyber risk should be treated as a business risk and not left solely to technology departments.
“Resilience is not the absence of attacks. Resilience is the ability to anticipate them, withstand them, recover from them and emerge stronger,” he said.
Mr Agbeti further warned cybercriminals that the CSA, together with law enforcement, intelligence, regulatory and international partners, would continue to strengthen Ghana’s capacity to identify, investigate and disrupt cyber-enabled crime.
“Technology may allow criminals to cross borders. It does not place them beyond accountability,” he said.
He urged the public to take simple precautions when using digital financial services, including verifying payment requests, protecting passwords and authentication credentials and being cautious about unexpected requests for money.
He warned that the growing use of artificial intelligence meant people could no longer rely solely on what they saw or heard online.
