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ACCRA, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Ghana's central bank here Tuesday intensified its efforts to mainstream electronic payment systems in the country's financial sector.
Towards this goal, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Johnson Asiama, inaugurated the Ghana Payment Systems Council to support the achievement of sound and efficient payment and securities clearance and settlement systems.
"The Bank in collaboration with the banking industry, is migrating all payment cards from magnetic stripe standard to Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) chip and PIN standard this year to enhance security and reduce fraud in the industry," the Deputy Governor stated.
Notwithstanding these laudable achievements, Asiama observed that cash still dominated payment transactions and a large number of people were excluded from the formal financial sector.
He however added that it is gratifying to know that international confidence in the payment system has also picked up on account of a robust regulatory environment.
"Credit cards issued in Ghana which were formerly not accepted for international transactions are now being accepted in Europe and the USA, among others," Asiama added.
In Ghana, a number of banks are also now issuing international scheme credit cards such as Visa and MasterCard on account of the renewed confidence in the payment systems to settle local Visa and MasterCard transactions.
The Council, which comprises representatives of ten institutions, is also to serve as a forum for co-operation to facilitate enduring conditions in regional and international payment systems.
Mobile Money penetration is one major boost for electronic payment systems, as telecom companies started paying interest on mobile money deposits last September.
Head of payment systems at the Bank of Ghana Settor Amediku said provision had been made under the regulation to protect the interest of consumers.
Amediku said the intention of the central bank was to use mobile money to bring people to the financial market sector because it was making an impact as just within one year mobile money was able to mobilize 1 billion Ghana cedis or 235.3 million U.S Dollars. Enditem
