Bank staff having tough time as redenomination begins

Accra, July 3, GNA - Bank staff at the tellers are having a tough time dealing with the large number of customers who have lined up in the banking halls to transact business as the redenomination exercise began on Tuesday.

A number of banks on the Osu Oxford Street, Labadi and Ring Road that the Ghana News Agency visited were full with long queues in the halls as well as at the ATMs. The tellers were constantly helping customers out with the exact amounts they were to cash.

The GNA found that a number of customers had not taken the education on the conversion seriously and were finding it rather difficult with the corresponding amounts they were cashing. There were customers who had just come in to change their old notes for new ones while some were also just there out of curiosity. Customers were highly impressed with the looks of the new notes and coins saying, "now, we also have nice and well sized notes such as the Euro or the dollar".

The Bank of Ghana on July 1, 2007 introduced the new Ghana Cedi, which would over the next six months replace the current notes. It gave reasons such as high transactions costs, bulky sizes of the notes and security. He new notes will circulate side-by-side with the old notes until the end of the year when it could be changed in the banks.