THE Vice President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has observed that the government and people of Ghana are proud of and confident in the future of the country.
“As one of the leading stars of a continent that is rediscovering the path to progress after a long period of underdevelopment, we are well on track in entrenching constitutional rule and multi-party democracy as the safest political security for social and economic progress,” he stated.
The Vice President was speaking at the launch of e-Transact, an international electronic transaction payment platform designed to make financial transactions with banks more secure, easier and faster, either by using a mobile phone, an e-Transact smartcard or on the Internet.
Mr Mahama stressed that the confidence of the government and people of Ghana had proven to be well founded in the past 17 years, and expressed the conviction that the current interest the investor community had in the economy was the result of what the country had been able to achieve collectively as a nation since the adoption of the 1992 Constitution.
He expressed optimism that the use of the e-Transact electronic transaction platform would reduce cash transactions and enhance the creation of credit by the financial sector, as well as reduce the huge capital outlay the country committed into the printing of the currency at the moment.
Mr Mahama gave the assurance that the government would play its part to ensure that the management of e-Transact enhanced their operations in order to meet their goals.
He, therefore, encouraged the management to quickly extend its activities to other parts of the country to enable a larger percentage of the populace to benefit from the speed and efficiency of the electronic transaction system.
The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Paul Acquah, observed that the financial sector, which has seen a significant degree of transformation, remained reasonably healthy and one of the most vibrant sectors of the economy.
“It has been built on a set of legislation and regulations that have established a framework for the development of a modern banking and financial services industry, “ he said.
Citing the e-zwich payment system as an equally essential effort to create a safe and efficient payment and settlement system infrastructure, Dr Acquah hinted that the Ghana Interbanking Payment and Settlement System (GHIPSS), a branchless banking framework, was being developed with the e-zwich biometrics smartcard as its core.
“It allows us to tap technology to provide a wide range of services and products to the public. It opens access to the unbanked segment of the population, including those who cannot read or write, in the urban, as well as in the rural areas, ” he stated.
To ensure that there was a broad-based participation by users and service providers for the successful development of branchless banking, Dr Acquah urged the management of e-Transact to open up and not have exclusive partners to enable customers to undertake transactions across all platforms.
The Global Chief Executive Officer of e-Transact, Mr Valentine Obi, said e-Transact was a Pan-African organisation with operations in other countries, including Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe and The United Kingdom.
Their decision to come Ghana, he said, was based on the enviable position of Ghana on the continent, and after 18 months of operations in the country, they felt vindicated about their confidence in Ghana.
The electronic platform, according to Mr Obi, was designed by Africans for Africa and to take the African payment systems to the next level without having to go through the challenges and difficulties that the Western world had to go through at the beginning of their journey into electronic payment systems.
Mr Obi announced that e-Transact was developing its regional headquarters office complex in Accra, to cater for their operations in the sub-region, and pointed out that the complex would house the e-Transact Global training centre, a data centre and a disaster recovery site for Global e-Transact.
Caption: The Vice President, Mr John Dramani Mahama (right), cuts a tape to unveil a prototype of the new e-Transact smartcard. Looking on (from left) are the Deputy Finance Minister, Mr Seth Terkper, Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Paul Acquah and the Global Chief Executive Officer of the e-Transact, Mr Valentine Obi.
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