We have a robust payment system - e-zwich operators

Officials of the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GhIPSS) say they have a robust e-zwich biometric verification system to support any organisation to deal with its payroll issues.

The Chief Executive Officer of GhIPSS, Mr Archie Hesse, told a media conference that the electronic payment platform, wholly owned by the Bank of Ghana, allowed cardholders to access banking services at any bank throughout Ghana, irrespective of whether that bank issued that smartcard or not.

He said the system of paying allowances or salaries to e-zwich smartcard holders was supported by the e-zwich Payment Distribution System Software.

The software facilitates the payment of allowances and salaries from one central point via the creation of 10-Digit Signature Codes linked to Unique Sequence Numbers (USNs) of recipient’s card.

This signature code is then loaded onto a smart card instantly at a POS or e-zwich ATM. Once the card is loaded, the cardholder can spend off the card in various ways, for instance, paying for a product or service, withdrawing cash or transferring money to another cardholder.

Mr Hesse said in the payment of salaries, the GhIPSS software would perform the biometric verification of the individuals on the payroll and match their biometric features against their card numbers and in the process remove duplicated biometric features.

“The system will then encrypt the allowance amount together with the recipients’ USNs into a 10 digit Signature Code, which can only be loaded onto the specific card whose USN the payment was made to,” he explained. “These codes can be loaded automatically (online) at any available e-zwich Point of Sale (POS) terminal or ATM across the country.”

On the charges, Mr Hesse said the process attracted between 0.50 pesewas and GHC1 depending on the type of transaction and the bank.

He explained that the service charge was for the banks because it was their infrastructure that a customer used.

On the issue of non-availability of the e-zwich machines in some banks and concerns of network challenges, Mr Hesse said they had a mandate to ensure that the machines were used in most of the banks across the country.