GhIPSS supports two Banking awards categories

The Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GhIPSS) has decided to support another category of the Ghana Banking awards, to recognize the bank that drives cashless banking.

This category will reward the bank that promotes payments with cards on Point of Sales (POS) devices, internet banking and cheques, among other electronic payment products.

This is in line with the mandate of GhIPSS, to migrate Ghana into an electronic payment community.

For the first time last year, organisers of the Banking Awards, Corporate Initiative Ghana, introduced a category to reward the most active e-zwich bank of the year, which was supported by GhIPSS.

The most active cashless bank, therefore brings to two, the categories sponsored by the national payment infrastructure provider.

The introduction of the latest category was announced during the launch of this year’s Ghana Banking Awards.

Indigenous bank, UT Bank, was by far the most active e-zwich bank for last year, however, it was anticipated that the most active cashless bank would be fiercely contested, as more banks were seeking to reduce queues in the banking hall by providing several electronic banking products and services.

Cash transactions continue to dominate the Ghanaian economy when countries such as Nigeria, Rwanda and Kenya among others on the continent, are making significant inroads into the cashless agenda.

Mr Archie Hesse, the Chief Executive Officer of GhIPSS, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said instituting the most active cashless bank of the year, should go a long way to complement other efforts to move Ghana away from heavy dependence on cash transactions.

Ghana expends so much money in printing current notes (cedis) which get worn out in no time and had to be replaced at additional cost.

It is also expensive to manage cash, considering the frequency with which cash must be moved around in bullion vans with tight security, which all come at a cost. Even the destruction of worn out notes are expensive because of the procedure involved in shredding them.

Mr. Hesse explained that the more frequent cash is used, the more cost the country incurs in printing, managing and destroying cash. He noted that a chunk of that expenditure could be saved if more cards and less cash were used.

The Ghana Banking Awards is a vehicle to showcase and applaud best performing banks in various categories of the Ghanaian financial services market.

All banks operating in Ghana are eligible to participate in these annual awards, which is determined in a very objective way through a nationwide survey of consumers of banking products and services.

The evaluation process is independent of the organizers of the awards and it is based on an objective and transparent methodology, which also considers the financials of the banks.

Access Bank won the overall Bank of the Year in the previous edition.