Officials of the central banks of Nigeria and Ghana as wel l as that of Verve Int ernational and GhiPSS at the signing ceremony
The Ghana
Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) has partnered Verve
International, a Nigerian-based subsidiary of Interswitch Group, to allow Verve
card holders to transact business in the country.
Ghana is the
latest to join 22 other African countries that have accepted the payment
technology which is originally issued in 12 countries on the continent.
The
agreement, which was finalised last Friday in Accra, was witnessed by representatives
from the central banks of Ghana and Nigeria.
The Director
and Head of Payment Systems at Bank of Ghana, Dr. Amediku Settor, who launched
the partnership, said such agreements were apt in creating enabling business
environment especially at a time when the continent sought to implement the
Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“Regional
card acceptance will foster effective and efficient mobilisation of resources.
Despite the remarkable improvement in domestic payment infrastructure on the
continent, the continent lacked efficient cross-border payment systems to
support intra trade,” he said.
The
integration of payment platforms on the continent, he said, would remedy the
situation where digital payment transactions had to go through security routes
outside Africa which in effect increased the cost of fund transfers and made it
appealing for informal funds transfer.
Dr. Settor,
however, appealed to Verve International to consider introducing competitive
transactional charges that would scale up adoption and usage while initiating a
charge back policy that did not hold customers funds for longer periods.
The Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) of GhIPSS, Archie Hessie, disclosed that the partnership
was as a result of a piloting that sought to link switches of domestic payment
schemes in West African countries, hence allowing for the sharing of payment
infrastructure across the region.
“As we speak
now, the switches are linked together but they are not live because we hit a
brick wall as to how to handle the settlement between local currencies as well
as settlements between countries,” he said.
He was,
however, hopeful that further engagements would allow Ghana’s payment
technology, GHlink card, to be accepted in Nigeria.
The CEO of Verve, Mike Ogbalu III, also said that the vision of such partnerships should be to collaborate rather than compete for the establishment of strong payment institutions which would lead the charge in promoting economic growth of the African continent.
By Issah Mohammed
