President Inuagurates e-zwich

Story: Nehemia Owusu-Achiaw & Boahene Asamoah

THE President, Mr John Agyekum Kufuor, yesterday inaugurated the national electronic payment system, popularly called e-zwich, with a call on micro, small and medium businesses to take advantage of the platform to be part of the financial system.
“Small and medium-scale businesses and those involved in micro-credit transactions must be encouraged to take advantage of this new platform to be linked to the financial system so as to benefit from the various services that the financial sector can offer,” he said.
Delivering the keynote address, President Kufuor stated that the main objective of the platform was to extend the coverage of financial services and transactions to a large segment of the population, adding that “this system is safe, secure and efficient”.
The e-zwich is a biometrics smart card which works both online and off-line which is meant to ensure cashless transaction and rope in the large untapped informal sector.
The President said the e-zwich would facilitate access to and transfer of money and remove the cumbersome and insecure processes of using cash.
President Kufuor underscored the importance of technology among emerging and developed countries which remained dependent on cash and paper transactions.
“Ghana must, therefore, phase itself from such dependency as it steadily progresses into the middle-income status,” he stated.
President Kufuor said in spite of the impressive growth of financial institutions as a result of reforms and stability in macro-economic environment, there were still a lot of people outside the financial system.
“An estimated 80 per cent of eligible population is still either ‘unbanked’ or ‘under-banked’ and seems to have no access to financial services,” he added.
The President again called on those responsible for the payment of wages, salaries, pension and other social support funds to consider the use of e-zwich to bring transparency and integrity to the payrolls.
The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Paul Acquah, said the e-zwich platform would transform the payment system into one that was state-of-the-art of the future to serve all financial institutions in the country.
“It is a platform to link all the existing 25 banking institutions, savings and loans companies, 123 rural banks and their branches and provide access to financial services and the national payment system for all economic transactions,” Dr Acquah stated.
He added that the platform provided a level playing field for institutions to compete on comparative advantage and innovation to drive the financial services industry.
“The e-zwich smart card can be used by anyone, everywhere to do business. It can store value, your money and your savings and you can use it to buy anything, anywhere, thanks to the e-zwich platform,” the Governor stated.
The acting President of the Ghana Association of Bankers (GAB), Mr Joe N. B. Tetteh, said the members of the association welcomed the introduction of the electronic platform as it had the potential to ensure an effective intermediation function of the financial system and the efficiency of funds flow as integral to the overall functioning of the system.
“The project is a manifestation of the banking fraternity’s contract to make Ghana a financial hub, with the government, the private sector and the community joining hands to ensure that the community at large is given easy and secure access to banking services,” Mr Tetteh said.
The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, stated that the government would continue to undertake reforms that would further propel the financial services sector to become the financial hub in the sub-region.