Mr. Fred France, Chief Executive Officer, Ghana InterBank Payments Systems (GhiPSS), has disclosedthat plans are far advanced with the support of the Bank Ghana to implement an open switch system.
This will allow for the processing of biometric, Europay / Mastercard / Visa (EMV) and other international and locally-branded card transactions on behalf of banks in the country.
The new switch will facilitate integration with other emerging payment systems such as internet payment gateways, mobile banking and telephone payment systems.
Mr. France announced this at the launch of the Ghana Automated Clearing House (GACH) in Accra on Tuesday. He said GACH is a system that introduces two products: the direct credit and direct debit transfers.
It will provide banks with the opportunity to process payment instructions on their own behalf and on behalf of their customers, or to convert them into electronic payment instructions or orders, which are then forwarded to other banks for the credit of those banks' own accounts or the accounts of their customers.
These transactions are referred to as direct credit transfers. Under the direct debit transfers, the scheme permits creditors to collect amounts due them from debtors, acting on the debtors' mandate or authorization.
Professor Samuel K. Sofa- Dedeh, Chairman of the Millennium Development Authority (MIDA\) said that one of the major constraints to the effective delivery of MIDA’s mandate was the bottleneck in the banking infrastructure, which manifested in the low financial inclusiveness of a large section of the rural communities.
This has led to a sizeable proportion of the population being under-served by financial institution or completely unbanked with very little contribution to the country's Gross Domestic Product and its march towards the midd1e- income economy.
He said to address the challenges of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) Programme Agricultural Commercialization Project, a financial services activity, which forms part of the programmes Rural Services Development Project, has been designed to extend the depth and value `of financial services being provided to rural populations.
He said the activity will strengthen integration into the cash economy and will widen access to savings, credit and cash transfer services.
"The project will build the capabilities and develop the efficiencies of rural banks, which are mainly owned by members of die rural community”, he explained.
Professor Sefa-Dedeh said the project will connect the over 130 rural banks to the national payments systems, to facilitate commercial activities as well as internal and l international remittance flows.
He said the project provided funding for the procurement and deployment of the software to introduce Cheque Truncation, and the hardware to create a system for the automated clearing of electronic payments.
source;BF&T
