Clarissa Kudowor, Assistant Director at Bank of Ghana

Clarissa Kudowor is an Assistant Director at the central bank, Bank of Ghana with over 25 years working experience as a trained regulator. She started her career in Banking Supervision and her responsibilities included off-site examinations, onsite-examinations and licensing of banks and non-banking institutions. She also reviewed applications for new financial products and services from financial service providers.

She joined the Banking Department in 2008 and worked in the Payment Systems Office which later became a fully-fledged department with responsibilities for the oversight of the payment system.

Clarissa headed the Financial Inclusion & Consumer Empowerment Office, and now heads the Authorizations and Innovations Office in the Payment Systems Department her schedule includes the appraisal of banks products and services for approval under existing legal and regulatory framework. She is a member of the National Financial Inclusion Development Strategy Task Force.

Clarissa is a fellow of the Fletcher Leadership School for Financial Inclusion (2017). She has served as the co-chair and chairman of the Digital Financial Services Working Group (DFSWG) of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion; and is currently the Gender Focal Point for the DFSWG. She has led a couple of sub-groups within the DFSWG to develop policy framework and guidance notes on Interoperability, Cross Border Remittances and Lessons on enhancing women’s financial inclusion using DFS. She is also associated with other gender related organizations pushing the reduction of the financial inclusion gender gap.