The Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr. Ernest Addison has urged banks to innovate or risk being disrupted by emerging financial technology companies in the country.
Acknowledging the competition being posed to banks by the emerging financial technology companies otherwise known as Fintechs, the governor called for the banks to reinvent themselves.
Speaking at the launch of a third party financial intermediary company PaySwitch Company Limited, Dr. Addison called on all financial companies to take advantage of the many reforms introduced by the central bank to innovate.
“As the Bank of Ghana improves on the regulatory and supervisory frameworks and the needed financial architecture, all stakeholders in the system must intensify efforts to innovate products and services to support the cashlite and financial inclusiveness agenda.”
Highlighting some of the reforms that have been introduced by the central bank, Dr. Addison said the reforms were part of the broader strategy to create an enabling regulatory environment for convenient, efficient and safe retail payment and funds transfer mechanisms.
“The Bank of Ghana for example issued the Branchless Banking Guidelines in 2008 and the Guidelines for E-Money Issuers (EMIs) and the Agent Guidelines in June 2015, with the objective of these guidelines promoting financial inclusion initiatives by extending financial services beyond the traditional branch-based channels and to limit e-money issuance to licensed Dedicated Electronic Money Issuer institutions.”
According to the governor, the bank has also established the needed financial architecture required to support a robust payments and settlement systems.
These include the Ghana Interbank Settlement (GIS) which is Ghana’s Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system; Cheque Codeline clearing (CCC) system; Ghana Automated Clearing House (GACH) system; National Biometric SmartCard Payment System (e-zwich); and National switching and Processing System – gh-link.
Dr. Addison called for more competition amongst financial sector players like Fintechs and banks.
This, he said will lead to the emergence of stronger institutions.
“The Bank of Ghana more than welcomes a more competitive payments landscape that the banks new reforms will bring to the system. As the number of non-bank E-money issuers’ increase, we expect that the banks will have to reinvent themselves or risk being disrupted by these no-bank players.”
Touching on the launch of the PaySwitch Company Limited, Dr. Addison urged the company to take advantage of the platform provided by the Bank for fintech companies within the legal and regulatory frameworks of the payment ecosystem.
ABOUT PAYSWITCH
PaySwitch Company limited is a Ghanaian company providing alternative banking solutions.
The company owns a switch and has built the state of the art data-center.
The company provides integrated payment solutions that facilitates the circulation of money as well as the exchange of values between individuals (C2C); individuals and organizations (C2B); organizations and individuals (B2C); and between organizations (B2B) on a timely and consistent basis.
Currently the company has as its targets commercial banks, non-banking financial institutions, telecommunication companies and other organizations within the payment space in Ghana and West Africa.
Solutions provided by the company include, but not limited to card Issuing & Personalization, internet and mobile banking, ATM and POS management, loyalty scheme cards, as well as fraud monitoring and prevention services.
By: Bobbie Osei/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana