[ 2012-08-03 ]

GH-Link set for October
Consumers of financial services will from October
this year be able to use their payment and debit
cards on any Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) and
point-of-sale device nationwide irrespective of
one’s parent-bank, the Chief Executive Officer of
GhIPSS Mr. Archie Hesse has said.

This has become possible as a result of a new
system, dubbed GH-Link, which is expected to
interconnect banks and build an efficient
financial and trading platform.

As such, all ATMs across the country as well as
new ATM cards are expected to bear the GH-Link
logo from the Ghana Interbank Payment and
Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) from October this
year.

Mr. Hesse explained this to the B&FT on the
sidelines of the third CEOs Business Breakfast
Forum held in Accra.

The cost of using the platform is expected to be
determined by individual banks during the piloting
phase this month, while negotiations are on-going
with banks for a flat-rate.

E-zwich and ATM cards will continue to be used as
normal during the piloting phase.
Under the current arrangement, ATM and e-zwich
cardholders can only use their cards on ATMs of
parent-banks and designated point-of-sale devices.
Consumers of the product have complained about
their inability to use their e-zwich cards on any
ATM, irrespective of the bank.

The introduction of the new system is expected to
remedy the situation and provide the convenience
of nationwide access as well as greater control
over transactions for cardholders, retail
merchants and corporate users.

E-zwich is a smart-card payment system introduced
by GhIPSS in April 2008 as an innovative method
for improving accessibility to banking and retail
services in Ghana. The e-zwich system offers
deposit-taking financial institutions a platform
that enables them to interoperate.

This enables e-zwich cardholders to perform
banking and retail transactions at the outlets of
other e-zwich financial institutions, and e-zwich
point of sales terminals.

More than half-a-million people have the e-zwich
cards, and the system continues to register more
users.

Source - Thebftonline.com

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