Ghana Cedi goes Online

Accra, July 26, GNA - Ghana Dot Com, operators of the Network Computer Systems (NCS), the pioneer internet provider in Ghana, has established an eCommerce platform known as eCash to serve Ghanaians online to enable them to use the Ghana Cedi on online. Known also as eSika, the platform, according to Dr Nii Narko Quaynor, Chief Executive of Ghana Dot Com, is an online payment processor that makes it possible for online merchants or websites to accept payment instruments and develop business to consumer applications.

Dr Quaynor told the Ghana News Agency during a presentation of the product and its application in Accra on Wednesday that by this move the group had set out to use indigenous technology to gain global competitive advantage in a purely emerging industry.

By this, the Ghanaian online market had received a boost with a robust product unique to the needs of the sub-region, he said. Dr Quaynor noted that even though the concept was new in Ghana, Ghana Dot Com's partnership with NCS had engendered a reputation of delivering on large complex projects and had survived numerous challenges.

Companies, which are leaders in this field, include Paypal Authorizenet and Verisign.

He said the eCash or eSika Card was actually a debit card and might also be used at designated retail spots, which would have a biometric information-picture of the owner of the card during on-sight use.

"It is not transferable and is intended to build trust in the use of plastic cards."

The Bank of Ghana has over the last few years advocated the use of plastic electronic cards to reduce the heavy dependence of cash in the financial system.

The Central Bank during the last World Bank Annual Meetings held a number of meetings with Visa International toward the establishment of an effective electronic card based cash system in the country. On how payments would be done, Dr Quaynor said there were linkages between the merchants, and the buyers using the Visa platform as an instant connection.

"By this all Visa Card holders can easily get hooked on and make their purchases online using Ghanaian Cedis. The same .... goes for American Express Card holders, Master Card or Discover card holders," Dr Quaynor said.

He explained that the decision to introduce this new product was to service the eCommerce market and galvanize the market within the West African sub-region.

On how secure the service would be, Dr Quaynor was emphatic that the system had integrity and was secure with a secret authentication procedure and non-repudiation in internet based financial transactions using public key infrastructure technologies.

"It allows websites to accept international credit cards, discount cards as well as the native online cards."

He said merchant cardholders and card issuers could view all their transactions on a website and merchants and cardholders were notified by email of all transactions.

Dr Quaynor said the processor was also capable of processing discount cards for retail merchants who had their own discount, premium or other cards.

The Ghana Dot Com processor could be configured to interface with banks to implement other non-card based payment instruments online such as transfers and drafts, he added.