Statement Regarding Bank of Ghana Notice of 10 June 2025 Concerning Yellow Pay

10 June 2025 (Accra, Ghana) – On 10 June 2025, the Bank of Ghana issued Notice No. BG / GOV / SEC / 2025 / 13, “Caution on Unlicensed Digital Platforms.” This notice made reference to Yellow Pay, a USD Stablecoin-related offering from Yellow Card Financial Inc. (“Yellow Card”) that is not available in Ghana.

Yellow Card Ghana Limited, a subsidiary of Yellow Card, was incorporated in 2020. Yellow Card Ghana is registered for reporting purposes with the Financial Intelligence Centre, Ghana. In addition, Yellow Card Ghana is registered with the Data Protection Commission, Ghana under the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843).

Yellow Card takes the integrity of its brand seriously and believes the public is entitled to accurate and truthful information. Therefore, Yellow Card wishes to make clear, for the record:

• Yellow Card has never ‘engaged in an ongoing collaboration with HanyPay,’ nor has Yellow Card ever been involved in a partnership or any other type of collaboration ‘to develop and integrate a new stable coin, AKL Lumi, into the global financial ecosystem.
•  HanyPay has never conducted a single transaction for even one cedi with Yellow Card Ghana or any other member of the Yellow Card group of companies anywhere in the world.
• HanyPay started an onboarding and sandbox integration process for use of Yellow Card’s Payments API in late 2024. In order to commence that process, just like hundreds of other prospective Payments API customers, HanyPay executed Yellow Card’s standard form Payments API agreement, not an agreement for any partnership or collaboration with respect to a new stablecoin or otherwise. HanyPay, however, never completed the onboarding and sandbox integration process.

Craig Stoehr, Yellow Card’s General Counsel, said, “It is most unfortunate that the Bank of Ghana determined to publish this notice, as Yellow Card Ghana clearly communicated the above-mentioned facts to representatives of the Bank of Ghana well in advance of issuance of the notice. Looking beyond this matter, Yellow Card welcomed publication of the Bank of Ghana’s Draft Guidelines on Digital Assets in August 2024, on which we commented extensively, as well as the recent statements of Governor Asiama indicating a regulatory framework for digital assets will be in place by this September. We have, on a number of occasions, communicated our staunch support for regulation of Ghana’s digital assets sector. Moreover, we have informed the Bank of Ghana repeatedly of our willingness to assist in any manner that might be helpful with respect to drafting these regulations. We have played a meaningful role in the development of digital assets legislation and regulations introduced in Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, and Morocco, and we look forward to having the opportunity to do the same in Ghana.”

About Yellow Card

Yellow Card, which was founded in 2016 by Christopher Maurice, our Chief Executive Officer, and Justin Poiroux, our Chief Technology Officer, is the leading licensed Stablecoin payments orchestrator for Africa and the emerging world. We enable businesses of all sizes to make international payments, manage their treasury, and access USD liquidity by leveraging the power of Stablecoins. Since launching in Nigeria in 2019, we have generated volumes of over US$6 billion and provided our innovative solutions to banks and other financial institutions, importers/exporters, manufacturers, food producers, venture-backed FinTechs, and others. 

Yellow Card holds virtual asset service provider or “VASP” licenses in South Africa and Botswana (the first VASP license issued on the African continent), as well as a VASP registration in the European Union (Poland). We are also registered as a “money services business” with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and we are registered and/or file reports with financial intelligence authorities in the European Union (Poland), Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

Yellow Card employs over 200 individuals from 24 countries, with women comprising over 45% of our workforce, and we have completed US$85 million in equity financings. Our financial investors include leading venture capital firms such as Polychain Capital, Blockchain Capital, Valar Ventures, Third Prime Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Sozo Ventures, Blockchain Coinvestors, Hutt Capital, and Winkelvoss Capital. In addition, our strategic investors include Coinbase and Block (Square/Cash App), listed companies with market capitalizations of approximately $60 billion each, as well as Blockchain.com and Galaxy.

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Media Contact:

Rutendo Nyamuda

Senior Brand Communications Manager

[email protected]