The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) is warning investors to be careful about investment offers promoted on social media and other digital platforms, where fraudsters are increasingly looking for people to deceive.
Managing Director of the GSE, Abena Amoah, said investors needed to know how to identify fraudulent schemes, verify investment products and establish where to report suspicious offers before committing their money.
She said investor education was essential to maintaining confidence in the capital market because people would only invest when they believed their money was going into genuine and properly regulated products.
“Education is at the core of what we do,” Ms Amoah said.
She was speaking after the GSE’s Ring the Bell for Financial Literacy programme, organised with the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) to mark World Investor Week.
The programm themed “Investor Resilience, Digital Deception and Scam Alert.”
Ms Amoah said the spread of digital platforms had made it easier for fraudsters to approach potential investors and promote schemes that could appear legitimate at first glance.
She said investors should therefore check whether the company and product they were being asked to invest in were licensed before handing over their money.
One of the first steps, she said, should be to check the relevant regulator’s website to establish whether the investment product or institution was authorised to operate.
“If you see something and you are not sure about it,” she said, investors should stop and verify the offer before proceeding.
Beware of promised returns
Ms Amoah also warned against investment schemes that attract customers with promises of exceptionally high or guaranteed returns.
She urged people to remember the effort that went into earning their money before making investment decisions based solely on promises of quick profits.
An offer promising a 70 per cent return, for example, should prompt an investor to ask how the return will be generated and what could happen to the original investment if the scheme fails.
She said investors could lose their money even when a scheme presents itself as a lucrative opportunity.
Her comments come as financial transactions and investment promotions increasingly take place through digital channels, making it harder for some consumers to distinguish genuine offers from fraudulent ones.
Education and reporting
Ms Amoah said education had already helped the public become more alert to some forms of financial fraud, citing the experience of mobile money scams.
She noted that many people who once readily responded to messages or calls claiming that money had been sent to them had become more cautious after years of public education about such scams.
She said the same awareness was needed in the investment space.
Investors, she said, should not only know how to spot suspicious schemes but also understand which institutions are responsible for receiving complaints, investigating fraud and taking action.
She also said financial market institutions were addressing cybersecurity risks and working to ensure that their staff and market participants had the tools needed to operate safely.
For investors, however, Ms Amoah said education remained one of the most important safeguards.
She said confidence in the market depended on investors knowing what they were buying, who was offering it and whether the product was properly regulated.
The GSE therefore wants investors to make verification a routine part of the investment process, particularly when an offer reaches them through social media or other channels outside established financial institutions.
