Ghana’s High Court Commercial Division has ordered Zeepay Ghana Limited and its chief executive, Andrew Takyi-Appiah, to pay more than $11.6 million to a customer who deposited funds with the company for onward transfer — money that was never sent.
Justice Afi Agbanu Kudomor granted a motion for summary judgment to one Michael Yusuf against Zeepay and Mr. Takyi-Appiah for the payment of funds deposited with Zeepay and into the mobile money wallet of Mr. Takyi-Appiah for onward transfers to persons designated by the plaintiff.
In assessing the evidence — including correspondence between Mr. Yusuf and officers of Zeepay as well as the course of dealing between the parties — the court held that Zeepay and its C.E.O. “have not been able to raise a reasonable defence to the instant action to be allowed to contest Plaintiff Applicant’s claims against them on the merits.”
What the Court Ordered
The judgment covers three separate tranches of funds:
The court ordered payment of $11,585,753, plus €8,500 and GH₵1,400,000, with interest on all sums calculated from the date of judgment until final payment.
The court also awarded costs of GH₵500,000 to the plaintiff.
Significantly, the court rejected an attempt by Zeepay’s legal team to remove Mr. Takyi-Appiah as a named defendant — a bid to separate personal liability from the company’s. The court rejected the affidavit in opposition filed on behalf of Zeepay and its C.E.O. that sought to disjoin and delimit liability from the chief executive.
The fact that funds were allegedly deposited directly into Mr. Takyi-Appiah’s personal mobile money wallet — not solely into corporate accounts — appears central to why the court kept him personally liable.
A Company Under Siege
The ruling lands at an already difficult moment for Zeepay, a company that once billed itself as one of Africa’s fastest-growing fintech firms. Founded in 2014, Zeepay operates a cross-border remittance and mobile money termination platform enabling diaspora payments into African bank accounts and mobile wallets, with reported operations in more than 23 markets.
But the past year has brought a steady accumulation of legal and regulatory trouble. Zeepay had already faced regulatory action in 2023, when the Bank of Ghana suspended its forex licence for two weeks over violations of the Foreign Exchange Act. That matter was resolved, but the legal exposure has continued to build.
In early 2026, a separate creditor — Obsidian Achernar Ltd, a Bank of Ghana-licensed financial services firm — served Zeepay with a statutory demand requiring payment of $1.22 million within seven days under a foreign exchange and working capital agreement. When that deadline passed without payment, Obsidian Achernar filed a petition to wind up the company under Ghana’s Corporate Insolvency and Restructuring Act.
In May 2026, the Central Bank of Barbados suspended the licence of Zeepay’s subsidiary, Zeemoney (Barbados) Limited, citing financial condition, governance, and compliance concerns. The subsidiary subsequently applied for voluntary winding-up rather than resuming operations.
Questions About Scale and Oversight
The $11.6 million judgment raises pointed questions about how a licensed fintech company came to receive what amounts to a large wholesale transfer — deposited partly into the personal mobile wallet of its chief executive — without executing the agreed transfers.
Zeepay has positioned itself as infrastructure for the African remittance corridor. The company has previously stated that it settled over 10 million remittance transactions worth more than $3 billion in a single year. That scale makes the allegations in the Yusuf case — funds deposited for onward transfer that simply did not move — particularly striking from a compliance standpoint.
The Bank of Ghana, which licenses and supervises Zeepay under the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019, has not issued a public statement on the ruling. Zeepay and Mr. Takyi-Appiah had not issued a public response at the time of publication.
