Dr Settor Amediku (right) is congratulated by Kwame Pianim and an official of eTranzact after launching the card as Archie Hesse and George Babafemi look on
ELECTRONIC
PAYMENTS and aggregation solutions firm, eTranzact, in partnership with the
Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) on Monday, launched the
Gh-link EMV debit and credit cards.
An
improvement over the Ghlink Card, CEO of GhIPSS, Archie Hesse, said the new
cards would complement the government’s digitization and financial inclusion efforts.
Mr
Hesse said, “By December 31,this year, all banks must issue this
card to every bank account holder. The need for Ghana to embark on this journey
is very clear. In the past, Ghana had only an international scheme card.”
Explaining the benefits of the cards, he said the prices of
the cards were determined locally and not by international scheme owners as was
the case previously.
The
CEO of GhIPSS continued that to allow for quick deployment of the cards, his
outfit had partnered GOIL to offer the cards to all motorists.
Christened
Gh Dual card, the new product inculcates the e-Zwich and gh-link applications,
and could be used either as e-Zwich, gh-link or both as desired on payment
platforms.
According
to officials of GhIPPS, the card has been designed to give cardholders access
to both funds on their e-Zwich cards and in their bank accounts at the same time.
Director
of the Payment Systems Department at the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr Settor
Amediku, who launched the cards on behalf of the Governor of the BoG indicated
that banks that failed to do as expected would be penalized.
According to George Babafemi, Executive Director for
eTranzact Ghana, said GhIPPS migrated its gh-link platform to Europay, Master
Card and Visa (EMV) to conform to global payment card standards adding that
resourcing the improved gh-link prepaid card was easy, since it connects with any
mobile wallet, bank account, or another cardholder.
