Sierra Leone

SL · SLE · Middle East & Africa

6 regulators · 12 laws & regulations · 8 obligations · 5 enforcement actions

Obligation	Timing	Regulator	Arises from	Source
All industries
Written particulars of employment	Deadline Within 12 weeks of the start date	—	Employment Act, 2023	source
Section 59 requires employers to give written particulars of employment; s. 33(1) makes employment contracts and personnel documents non-binding unless vetted and attested by the Commissioner.
Banking
Deposit Protection Fund membership and premiums	Frequency Quarterly	BSL	Deposit Protection Fund Act, 2023	source
Licensed banks and specialised deposit-taking institutions must join the Fund (s. 10) and pay a flat baseline rate plus a risk-based differential quarterly (s. 17).
Outsourcing notification and cloud approval	Deadline Before entering the arrangement	BSL	Cyber Security and IT Risk Management Guidelines for Commercial Banks	official
Banks must notify the Bank before entering a material outsourcing arrangement (s. 4.22(4)). Moving to cloud services needs Board discussion and preliminary approval (s. 4.31.1) and the Bank's approval (s. 4.31.2), with provider due diligence before contracting and at least every two years (s. 4.31.3), and encryption keys stored with the bank.
Report cyber incidents to the Bank of Sierra Leone	Deadline Within 24 hours of the incident	BSL	Cyber Security and IT Risk Management Guidelines for Commercial Banks	official
Section 9.4 requires any cyber incident to be reported within 24 hours using the Appendix II form; s. 9.5 adds a quarterly incident report (Appendix III) due on the 10th day after each quarter ends.
Payments & Fintech
E-money issuer licensing and trust account safeguarding	—	BSL	Guidelines for e-Money Issuers	official
Issuing e-money requires a Bank of Sierra Leone licence held by a separate limited company registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (s. 5). Trust accounts must hold cash at least equal to the total e-money outstanding at any time in the day, segregated per beneficiary, and may be invested only in liquid government securities (s. 10).
Payment service provider and system operator licensing	Before providing payment services	BSL	National Payment Systems Act, 2022	source
Section 6 requires a Bank of Sierra Leone licence to provide payment services or operate a payment system; s. 7 lets the Bank substitute registration for low-risk services, and banks need a licence only to operate a system (s. 8).
Payment system records retention	Retention period 7 years	BSL	National Payment Systems Act, 2022	source
Section 23 requires records to be kept for seven years.
Retention of over-the-counter e-money transaction data	Retention period At least 5 years	BSL	Guidelines for e-Money Issuers	official
Section 13 requires sender and recipient data for over-the-counter transactions to be kept for at least five years.
No obligations match these filters.