Business News of Saturday, 5 May 2018
Source: citibusinessnews.com
2018-05-05
The mobile money interoperability is the first phase of three systems expected to aid money transfer
The Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) has disclosed that the mobile money interoperability will go live on Thursday, May 10, 2018.
According to the CEO of GhIPSS, Archie Hesse, the rolling out of the system will follow the launch by the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.
The mobile money interoperability is the first phase of three systems that are expected to aid the transfer of money from one platform to another.
The other systems are expected to assist the public in the transfer of funds from their bank accounts to mobile money networks as well as to e-zwich cards and vice versa.
These three operations, when completed, will result in obtaining the government’s ‘financial inclusion triangle’.
The mandate for GhIPSS to undertake the mobile money interoperability task came after the NPP government rejected an earlier agreement granted to Sibton Switch systems which had agreed to offer the service at an estimated cost of 4.6 billion cedis.
The establishment of GhIPSS for at least ten years now is geared at improving the payment systems.
Among others, GhIPSS has through the collaboration of financial institutions, introduced and operationalised electronic payments channels such as e-zwich, Automated Clearing House (ACH) which has both Direct Credit and Direct Debit.
In addition, cheques are now cleared electronically while there is gh-link interbank switching platform to make Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and Point of Sales (POS) devices interoperable and accessible by different bank cards.
Latest additions to the electronic payment channels are the Instant Pay and the e-bills pay that enable funds to be transferred across banks instantly.
The benefits to the country with the use of electronic payment systems are enormous.
Obviously, the move will reduce the time of sending or receiving money.
In addition, it will cost the country less in spending on maintaining, replacing and destroying wornout currency notes.
Meanwhile, confidence would be revived as people could send or receive money within a secure and convenient manner.