Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia
The completion of the Financial Inclusion Triangle means that practically anyone with a mobile phone has access to banking services without necessarily walking into a bank to open an account, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia has posited.
The Financial Inclusion Triangle, which allows the movement of money between mobile money wallets, bank accounts and ezwich accounts, is first in the world, and has made banking services available to the large unbanked population in Ghana.
There are currently 31 million registered Mobile Money accounts, according to the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems Limited (GhIPPS). Ghana’s population is estimated to be about 28 million.
Explaining the significance of the uniquely Ghanaian financial innovation on Saturday, 15th December, 2018, the Vice President indicated that making financial services easily accessible formed part of government’s resolve to leverage technology to modernise the Ghanaian economy.
“If you could take the mobile phone with a mobile wallet, be able to make it interoperable with a bank account, so that you can move money between your mobile phone and a bank account, from a bank account to your mobile wallet, from your bank account to the ezwich account, from the ezwich account to your mobile wallet… it means that today if you have a mobile account you practically have a bank account because you can move money and pay your taxes, pay your passport fee, pay for your DVLA charges just from your mobile wallet into the bank account of government,” he explained.
The Vice President, who was speaking at the 10th Congregation of the Pentecost University College, Accra, continued: “Government can also transfer money to you through your mobile account even if you don’t have a bank account. So you have the use of a bank account without necessarily going to a bank to open a bank account, and this is going to bring a lot of our population into the financial system and move us from financial exclusion to financial inclusion.”
The use of electronic payments would also reduce the need for human interface and strengthen the fight against corruption, the Vice President stressed, adding that government would soon require all payments for public services to be made electronically.
Congratulating the graduands, Vice President Bawumia urged them to use the “tools of the mind, tools of thinking and skills” acquired over the period of learning to “ask old questions in new ways”.
You have the tools to solve problems. Use the knowledge acquired to better your lot, make a difference to your community, and contribute to the building of society.