Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) Dr Ernest Addison, has said the COVID-19 pandemic was challenging, but it also presented some opportunities.
He said following the restrictive measures imposed to contain the spread of the virus, the central bank, in collaboration with industry stakeholders, embarked on measures that encouraged the use of electronic payments.
So far, he said, the data suggests that use of the various electronic payment channels of banks and payment service providers recorded phenomenal increase within that period.
Speaking during the 2021 Annual Bankers Week dinner of the Chartered Institute of Bankers over the weekend, he said, customers of digital payment channels actively used their accounts, while dormant accounts were activated and new customers were on-boarded.
“This shows that the pandemic injected some vigour into the digital payments space and pulled households and firms into the financial technology space.
“Currently, there are more than nineteen million (19,000,000) active mobile money accounts driving the digital financial services industry. Prior to the pandemic, this number was 14.4 million.
“Similarly, mobile money interoperability continued to show strong growth of about 365 percent in transaction volumes and 651 percent in transaction values between 2019 and 2020.
“These trends point to increased consumer confidence and preference for digital payment options in the economy.
“Collectively, therefore, we, as stakeholders, must leverage on these positive headwinds to develop and implement digital strategies to spur growth in the digital financial services sector,” Dr Addison indicated.
Recently, the President of the Ghana Association of Bankers, Madam Patricia Sappor, revealed that the value of mobile money transactions for the first four months of this year totaled ¢301.1billion whiles that of cheque transactions over the same period amounted to ¢68.3bn.
Madam Sappor said this when she was speaking during the 25th National Banking conference in Accra on the theme “the digital economy of Ghana the strategic role of the banking industry” on Thursday November 18.
She said “The value of mobile money transactions for the first four months of this year totaled 301.1billion whiles that of cheque transaction over the same period amounted to 68.3bn.
“If the trend continues which I believe will, the total value of mobile money transactions will surpass cheque transactions by far more than 389bn recorded for the whole year of 2020.”
Her comments come at a time the government has introduced tax on mobile money transaction in the budget statement for the 2022 fiscal year.
By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana