Tokenisation Is Coming to Financial Sector Boardrooms. Are Directors Asking the Right Questions?

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At the Africa Virtual Asset Summit 2026, convened by Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), I joined a panel discussing tokenisation, investor protection and the capabilities financial institutions need as digital assets become part of mainstream finance.
I approach this conversation from the perspective of someone who has worked on both sides of technology adoption. I helped deploy mobile money at Vodafone Ghana, and today I serve on financial-sector boards and chair technology committees. I have seen how a promising technology becomes a product that institutions must deliver, manage and remain accountable for. That experience shapes the question I bring to discussions about tokenisation: What will the board be asked to approve? If your institution decides to use tokenisation to issue, sell or manage financial assets, do you understand what you are approving, what could go wrong, and who will be accountable if it does?

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Africa’s AI Ambition Has an Electricity Bill. Who Should Pay It?

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Africa Wants to Be an AI Economy. Who Pays for the Electricity to Power It?
We have learned to applaud the wrong number.
A minister stands beside an executive. A figure with nine zeros glows on the screen behind them. The photographs are taken. The headline almost writes itself: another billion-dollar technology investment is coming to Africa.
And perhaps we should applaud. Africa needs more data centres, more compute and more of the infrastructure that will allow our businesses and governments to participate seriously in the AI economy.
But I think we are focusing on the wrong electricity question.
The obvious conversation is already happening: AI needs enormous amounts of power, and Africa needs to generate more electricity if it wants to compete.
I am interested in the question underneath that one.
What if the electricity demand created by Africa’s AI boom is not merely another infrastructure cost to finance, but a new economic asset we can use?

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What Are Africa’s Stablecoin Users Trying to Tell Its Central Banks?

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Africa is moving from debating whether crypto should be regulated to deciding how it should be regulated.
That is broadly the right direction.
Ghana is bringing virtual assets formally inside the regulatory perimeter. South Africa is incorporating crypto assets into its broader capital-flow architecture. Nigeria has moved through restriction, enforcement and towards a more formal regulatory framework.
The reasons are obvious. Consumer losses matter. Money laundering matters. Tax matters. Capital flows matter. Financial stability matters.
But I think there is another question hiding underneath the regulatory conversation.
Millions of Africans are choosing stablecoins despite uncertain protection, fraud risk and regulatory ambiguity. What exactly are they trying to buy?
Because what if part of Africa’s stablecoin boom is not really demand for crypto at all?

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