The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has admitted WeWire, a Ghana-founded global cross-border infrastructure and payments fintech, into its Virtual Assets Regulatory Sandbox to pilot the tokenisation of trade finance instruments.
The company is among nine firms selected to test innovative virtual asset products under the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025 (Act 1154).
A statement issued in Accra said WeWire would use the regulatory sandbox to explore how trade finance instruments could be represented and settled as digital tokens.
It said the initiative had the potential to address capital inefficiencies, settlement delays and liquidity constraints that continued to affect cross-border trade in Africa and other emerging markets.
The statement said tokenising real-world trade finance assets could provide a more programmable, transparent and efficient mechanism for capital clearing and trade settlement.
Tokenisation To Improve Trade Finance
Mr Eben Ghanney, Chief Executive Officer of WeWire, said unlocking liquidity for businesses in emerging markets required bringing institutional-grade assets and real-world trade into the digital economy.
He said the SEC’s admission of WeWire into the sandbox reinforced the company’s belief that African fintech firms could meet high regulatory standards while developing solutions to challenges facing businesses on the continent.
Mr Ghanney said trade finance remained a major source of friction for businesses seeking to move goods and funds across borders.
“This Sandbox allows us to demonstrate how trade finance tokenisation can lower barriers, reduce friction, and drastically cut the costs associated with cross-border trade,” he said.
He said WeWire’s participation built on its earlier engagement with the Bank of Ghana Regulatory Sandbox, through which it worked with regulators to develop compliant blockchain-based payment solutions and stablecoin liquidity infrastructure.
SEC Sandbox To Test Blockchain Applications
Under SEC supervision, WeWire will explore how blockchain-based asset tokenisation can streamline trade finance processes, improve working capital management for importers and exporters and facilitate settlement between traditional financial networks and digital asset infrastructure.
The development comes amid growing interest in Ghana’s capital market in the tokenisation of traditional financial instruments, including Treasury bills, bonds and physical commodities.
The sandbox is expected to provide a controlled regulatory environment for testing such innovations while allowing regulators to assess their potential risks and benefits before wider adoption.
WeWire Expands Cross-Border Infrastructure
The SEC sandbox admission also coincides with the expansion of WeWire’s business-to-business Application Programming Interface (API) infrastructure, which is designed to enable financial institutions, fintech companies and global enterprises to integrate embedded financial services into their platforms.
The infrastructure enables businesses to create multi-currency accounts, access localised fiat payment services across more than 100 countries and facilitate cross-border liquidity transactions.
It also provides virtual accounts, multi-currency wallets and payment infrastructure designed to bridge fiat and stablecoin transactions for businesses operating in emerging markets.
WeWire said the combination of its payments infrastructure and the sandbox initiative would enable it to explore new ways of improving access to capital and reducing the cost and complexity of cross-border commerce.
