ACCRA, Ghana — Three technology firms have launched TrustNET, an artificial intelligence-powered security platform designed to combat rising financial fraud across West Africa’s rapidly digitizing banking sector.
The platform, developed through a partnership between BlueSPACE, INETCO, and Sumsub, was unveiled on March 11, 2026, at an executive roundtable in Accra, bringing together senior banking leaders to address what industry insiders describe as a critical vulnerability in the region’s financial infrastructure.
Addressing a Growing Threat
Samuel Amanor, CEO of BlueSPACE, explained that the financial ecosystem has undergone a significant shift from a largely cash-based system to a rapidly expanding digital finance network, creating new opportunities for sophisticated criminal activity.
According to Amanor, limited cross-institutional sharing of fraud intelligence remains a key vulnerability in the rapidly expanding domestic digital financial ecosystem. The absence of real-time fraud intelligence sharing among banks, mobile money operators and other financial technology providers leaves the country’s financial system exposed to coordinated attacks.
“At the moment, fraud intelligence is not shared across service providers,” Amanor said on the sidelines of the inaugural TrustNET Summit. “If an incident occurs on one telco, it can easily migrate to another. The same applies within banking; fraud detected at one institution can quickly surface at others. The challenge is that the intelligence needed to stop these patterns is still held in silos”.
How TrustNET Works
TrustNET integrates Sumsub’s identity verification and compliance orchestration, INETCO’s real-time payment fraud prevention and transaction monitoring, and BlueSPACE’s deep regional expertise in financial technology integration.
The platform’s core capabilities include:
Automated identity verification for individuals and businesses to orchestrate Know Your Customer (KYC), Know Your Business (KYB) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) onboarding workflows that adapt instantly to evolving regulatory requirements.
Under the model, a customer verified by one participating institution could be recognized across the network without repeating the full know-your-customer process, while fraud signals detected by one operator would become visible to others.
INETCO’s machine-learning engine analyses transactions to build evolving risk profiles for individual users, cards and devices, recalibrating risk assessments after each transaction.
Industry Response
Bijan Sanii, CEO of INETCO, emphasized the urgency of real-time monitoring capabilities. “In an era of high-speed digital payments, real-time visibility is non-negotiable. TrustNET integrates real-time transaction monitoring with AI-powered payment fraud prevention to ensure every payment is secure from end to end, enabling regulators and banks to scale digital payments with confidence”.
Richy Emah, Regional Director for North/West Africa at Sumsub, highlighted the platform’s focus on user experience. “With TrustNET, we are enabling regulators and financial institutions to onboard and verify users instantly and accurately, reducing friction without compromising safety”.
Regional Implications
The launch brought together senior banking leaders, CIOs, CISOs, heads of compliance and fraud risk executives to explore the future of AI-driven financial integrity in Ghana, signaling broad industry interest in collaborative security solutions.
Amanor stated that financial institutions across West Africa can now leverage TrustNET to satisfy stringent onboarding compliance, modernize payment fraud defense and build lasting customer trust. He added that “this alliance empowers regulators and banks to fight increasingly sophisticated financial crime while fostering greater financial inclusion”.
The platform represents a significant step toward addressing what many see as a fundamental challenge: balancing rapid financial inclusion with robust security measures. As West Africa continues its digital transformation, the success or failure of initiatives like TrustNET could determine whether the region’s banking sector can sustain its growth trajectory while protecting consumers from increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes.
Financial institutions interested in adopting the platform can contact the partner organizations for implementation details and regional deployment schedules.
