A Partnership for Progress: Why the ProMark–KPMG collaboration matters for Africa’s digital assets future

Africa's digital assets landscape has evolved from mere technological curiosity to a critical area requiring robust rules, institutional development, and responsible innovation. The partnership between ProMark Elite Limited and KPMG at the Digital Assets Summit Africa (DASA 2026) signifies a pivotal shift towards this next phase of market growth.

As digital assets become integral to financial policies, regulations, and business strategies across the continent, discussions are expanding to cover payment systems, cross-border transactions, tokenization, investment, financial inclusion, consumer protection, taxation, cybersecurity, and financial crime.

This transition brings forth a host of questions and challenges that institutions must address before digital assets can be adopted widely. Key concerns include licensing, supervision, taxation, accounting, and control mechanisms, alongside customer and financial system protections. Achieving progress in this arena will necessitate coordinated efforts among regulators, financial institutions, investors, technology providers, businesses, and professional advisers.

Moreover, institutions must align innovation with clear economic goals, accountable governance, and rigorous controls tested prior to scaling solutions.

ProMark Elite Limited serves as the organizer of the DASA, providing a platform for central banks, securities regulators, government bodies, banks, fintech companies, investors, technology providers, academics, and professional advisers to discuss digital assets development across Africa. The 2026 edition of the summit will feature the participation of Ghana's Bank of Ghana, including its Virtual Assets Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, emphasizing the importance of policy, supervision, and market conduct.

KPMG, acting as a Knowledge Partner, aims to enhance the summit's content's quality and practical relevance. Their involvement encompasses insights from financial services, governance, risk, regulation, tax, audit, and technology. Together, ProMark and KPMG seek to shift the conversation from broad dialogues to concrete decisions and safeguards essential for digital asset market evolution.

Ghana's regulatory journey has moved from broad policy discussions to the establishment of a formal structure for virtual assets through the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025 (Act 1154). This legislation lays the groundwork for the registration, licensing, and supervision of virtual asset service providers. The Bank of Ghana has further bolstered this effort by creating a Virtual Assets Department dedicated to regulating and overseeing activities within the virtual assets ecosystem.

These regulatory advancements have profound implications for financial institutions, necessitating compliance with customer due diligence, anti-money laundering controls, transaction monitoring, cybersecurity, financial reporting, tax, and consumer protection considerations. Institutions must also clarify how virtual asset activities intertwine with existing products, payment channels, and risk frameworks.

The subsequent phase will hinge on practical implementations, where regulations will guide boards in determining appropriate risk appetites, assist control functions in implementing necessary safeguards, and assist innovators in identifying conditions for responsible market entry. KPMG's contributions to this sector's development include enhancing banking sector capabilities through technical inputs to cryptocurrency training programs for Ghanaian banks.

KPMG's participation in the eCedi Hackathon, organized by EMTECH for the Bank of Ghana, underscores the importance of testing digital asset solutions against real-world use cases, encompassing merchant payments, government payments, lending, crowdfunding, and taxation. This approach underscores that technological readiness is only the beginning; robust governance, financial controls, data protection, accounting, tax compliance, cybersecurity, consumer safeguards, and operational resilience are also critical components of a successful digital asset implementation.