Mobile money companies in Ghana to be merged by November 2017

The Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bank of Ghana, has been tasked by government to interoperate all mobile money companies by November this year.

When done, mobile money users could send and receive money across networks. “So we will fully interoperate the four mobile money companies by November so that we can also ensure that you can move funds from your mobile money wallet to the bank account and vice-versa, and to your e-zwich wallet as well,” Mr Archie Hesse, CEO of GhIPSS told a cross-section of journalists on the company’s achievements in the last 10 years.

GhIPSS was incorporated in May 2007 with a mandate to implement and manage interoperable payment system infrastructures for banks and non-bank financial institutions in Ghana.

Hesse said being able to move funds freely from e-zwich, traditional bank account and mobile money wallets was going to be the financial
inclusion triangle that GhIPSS would use to drive the idea of roping in a lot of the unbanked population into the banking sector and to ensure that transactions were also done in the electronic mode.

“With that we believe is going to create full convenience,” he said. Mr Hesse called for a comprehensive awareness creation and education
from the side of government, the main users of the payment system, to re-engineer and utilise the payment systems that had been created.

There is also the need to engage the banks, savings and loans, rural banks to ensure that they did not only offer a limited number of
services available, but offered the full bouquet of the products and services. Education must also be extended to all other stakeholders, including corporate bodies, merchants and the public to move the agenda of cashless economy possible, he said.

Hesse said GhIPSS had made major strides to promote the agenda of a cash-lite economy since its establishment 10 years ago.

The company had contributed to the growth of Ghana’s financial sector with the development of electronic payment platforms.

He said GhIPSS had been able to implement a number of interventions to bring convenience to users of financial products and to also promote financial inclusion for the majority of unbanked population. “If you look at the spread of payment services that we’ve managed to
develop and operate at GhIPSS, I think over the last 10 years we’ve come a long way,” he said.

He said there was the growing realisation among the public that Ghana’s payment system was world class.

Among GhIPSS product is e-zwich, the cheque clearing system which reduced the cheque clearing cycle from three to 10 days to Same-day or Next Day, the Direct Credit and Direct Debit system that is helping companies sort out bulk and repetitive payments.