Regulate online FX trading platforms to rake in revenue – FX experts tells gov’t

As concerns over low domestic revenue mobilisation continue to haunt government, which has led to the introduction of some unpopular tax measures such as the Electronic Levy (E-Levy), online forex trading experts are calling for policies that will regulate such trading, as other countries are cashing in due to the value and volumes of transactions happening on such platforms.

According to the experts, about US$2 million financial transactions from the country are taking place on various FX platforms that are untraceable because they do not use the regular banking system, but a regulated national platform would be a gamechanger, that could help government mobilize revenue to meet its targets.

Founder, Women in Forex Trading Ghana, Gifty Annor Sika, indicated that the absence of an FX regulation and a local trading platform for that matter means that the state is losing a lot of revenue to other countries with these systems in place because the platforms that currently exist are foreign owned, and the taxes and charges go to these countries.

Again, local traders have to change cedis to dollars, euros, pounds or other currencies to trade which affects the stability of the cedi, hence, addressing this issue will add to solving the cedi depreciation.

“We need domestic trading platforms for FX because when a particular currency is being used to trade on the market a lot, it appreciates. So, when we have a domestic platform for Ghanaians to use and are not changing cedis to dollars to trade, then, the cedi will appreciate and be of better standing on the capital market.

At the moment, we do not have that yet and although we make only 1.5 percent, huge sums of money are being changed from cedi to dollar. Only when this can change that we would be able to identify several untraceable revenues that government is losing,” she said.

Furthermore, she indicated that besides a regulated platform’s ability to help government achieve its revenue target and address currency depreciation, it also has the potential to create several jobs for the teeming youth who are technology savvy.

She made these remarks speaking to the media on the sidelines of the Africa Financial Awards (AFTA) 2021, which took place over the weekend at Kempinski Gold Coast City Hotel, Accra.

The African Financial Traders Awards (AFTA) is aimed at honouring institutions and personalities who have had exceptional impact on the financial front in forex and digital trading. It also aims at raising professional execution and transparency standards among financial market players in Africa.

In all, 35 individuals and institutions were honoured at this year’s award from eight categories; Financial Investment Advisor of the Year, Financial Market Expert of the year, Financial CEO of the Year, Financial Market Broker of the Year, and Emerging Financial Technology of the year.

Other categories included Senior Financial Market Trader of the Year, Most Promising Financial Market Company, Financial Market Institute, Best Financial Coach of the Year, and Financial Market Trading Revelation of the Year.

Source: B&FT