Sierra Leone is currently hosting the 12th Meeting of College of Supervisors for Non-Bank Financial  Institutions in West Africa Monetary Zone.

The Meeting is currently held at the Conference Hall of Bank Complex, in Kingtom, West end of Freetown.

Welcoming the participants from Guinea, the Gambia, Ghana and Liberia, the Director General of WAMI, Dr. Abdulsalam Sikiru Abidemi, said that they must continue to stay vigilant against risk, such as currency volatility, including geopolitics disruptions can pose risk to financial stability.

Director Abidemi noted that, contemporary advancement in technology especially in Artificial Intelligence, presents significant opportunities to enhance our financial system through improved acceleration of service delivery.

Delivering the keynote address on behalf of the Governor of the Central Bank, the Deputy Governor, Alhaji Yayah Sesay, none Bank financial institutions continue to serve as bridge between the underserved and formal financial institutions, as they provide essential services, households, smallholder farmers, micro and small enterprises and marginalized communities, many of whom remain outside traditional banking systems.

He maintained that in Sierra Leone, as in many parts of the region, none Bank financial institutions are central to national strategies for financial institutions access to finance and rural development.

He said they serve as a conduit for remittances, offer micro loans and facilitates community savings, all of these contribute to economic empowerment and poverty reduction.

He said this expansion also brings challenges, risks to consumers, governance and increasingly the integrity of the financial systems particularly in the current evolving nature of financial crimes and technological disruptions.

Deputy Governor Sesay said the 12th Meeting is not a strategy engagement but a strategic containing of minds and mandate, it provides a platform for capability building and a define response to the emerging underlining concerns.

He noted that they must brace up to the progress made under past action plan and reveal effectiveness of their supervisory frameworks.

More importantly, they must critically examine how to adapt the new realities of the sector.

Giving his opening remarks, Chairman, CSNBFI and Director, Inclusive Financial Institutions Supervision Department of the Central Bank of Guinea, Mr. Ibrahim Kanda Diallo, emphasized the importance of the Meeting.

Deputy Director and Head of other Financial Institutions Supervision Department of the Bank of Sierra Leone, Madam Esther Johnson, said that the 12th Meeting is a platform that brings together countries in the West Africa Monetary Zone.

She said these are people that are supervising financial institutions that are not banks, underscore that they are regulators in their various jurisdictions supervising and regulating financial institutions  that are not banks, like the Mobile money operators, the micro financial institutions, the foreign exchange bureau, community banks among others.

The Meeting continues until Friday 18th April 2025.