Accra, May 331, 2018//-Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, an industry association and a private initiative by the mobile network operators in Ghana is collaborating with financial technology (fintech) firms, and Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems Limited (GhIPSS), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to drive cashless economy in the country.
This came to light at a knowledge forum held in Accra today. It was attended by members of the Ghana Fintechs Association, representatives of GhiPSS, BoG and World Bank’s Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP).
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Ken Asigbey, in a short address said the chamber and its members would continue to dialogue with the other stakeholders to speed up the development of the country’s burgeoning fintech industry.
“This is why we organised this forum in partnership with other stakeholders to enable us dialogue among ourselves”, he stated.
Mr Asigbey and the fintech operators believe that the fintech industry has potential to drive financial inclusion in the country.
“Currently, the Bank of Ghana doesn’t regulate the fintech industry. But the banks that the fintech companies are dealing with are being regulated by the BoG”, Albert Daapah-Yeboah, Communications Manager of Interpay, a leading electronic payment platform that makes transactions and e-commerce simpler, secure, and more convenient, said.
Mr Daapah-Yeboah used the opportunity to call on his colleagues in the fintech industry to streamline their activities to enable them jealously protect the gains chalked in the ecosystem.
As he put it: “Let’s streamline what we are doing in the ecosystem. We are a young fintech industry but we have achieved a lot in the country’s payment system”.
To this end, Mr Daapah-Yeboah called for a clear-cut policy to guide the gains that the local fintechs have made, saying “these gains should not to be eroded by fintech giants”.
He debunked the notion that fintechs are threat to financial institution, especially banks, saying: “Fintechs are not competitors to traditional banks but rather we are partners or collaborators”.
The Chief Manager of Payment Systems Department at the Bank of Ghana, Clarence Blay was optimistic that if Fintech firms come together and do things together, they could improve digital financial services (DFS) in Ghana and other parts of Africa.
“This is the best move to bring financial services to the excluded”, he stated.
DFS Expert at CGAP, Kwame Oppong noted that millions of jobs could be created from the fintech industry if the government pays serious attention to it by putting the appropriate policies in place to harness it.
The World Bank’s Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and Intermedia in December 2015 released an influential report detailing new insights into Ghana’s progress on financial inclusion and usage of Mobile Money.
The report included findings from a nation-wide Financial Inclusion Survey (FII) and compares Ghana to its African peers – including Kenya and Tanzania, the two most successful Mobile Money markets on the continent.
It revealed that 17% of Ghanaian adults are active users of Mobile Money. The report suggested that high banking penetration has likely played a role in Ghana’s adoption of Mobile Money: 34% of adults already have a bank account, and 45% of those individuals access it through mobile apps or the internet.
Ghana’s active Mobile Money user-base has more than doubled in one year. CGAP expected Ghana’s positive progress to continue especially since new Mobile Money regulations were passed in July 2015 which have awakened policymakers of the critical role that Mobile Money plays in driving financial inclusion.
Ghana outranks Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania on four indicators of “mobile-readiness”. According to CGAP Ghana is “the most digital financial services-ready country in Africa” when it comes to the key elements required for successful adoption: 92% of adults have the required ID necessary to open an account and 91% of Ghanaians already own a mobile phone (compared to only 74% and 72% in Kenya and Tanzania, respectively).
Ghana’s Mobile Money users are better-off than their African peers. 60% of Ghana’s active. Mobile Money account holders live in urban areas, and only 19% live on less than $2.50 per day compared to 72% in Rwanda, the report added.
“Fintech is a portmanteau of financial technology that describes an emerging financial services sector in the 21st century. Originally, the term applied to technology applied to the back-end of established consumer and trade financial institutions”, according to experts.
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report
