Archie Hesse, CEO, GhIPSS
THE GHANA Interbank Payment & Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) has indicated that the value of transactions processed on its platform in 2020 was GH¢254 billion, representing a 16 per cent increase over an amount of GH¢219 billion recorded for 2019.
Archie Hesse, Chief Executive Officer of GhIPSS, who revealed this to the media in Accra recently, attributed the improvement in digital transactions to Covid-19.
“The upsurge in the use of these real-time services was largely influenced by Covid-19 related factors such as the three weeks lockdown which restricted the physical movements of people, public awareness through extensive education discouraging the handling of physical cash and encouraging the use of electronic alternatives from the financial services industry with fee waivers on their services,” he said.
He also revealed that at the end of 2020, a total of 77 million transactions were processed across all platforms, compared to the 38 million transactions processed in 2019, which represented an increase of 103 per cent.
Indicating that the increases were recorded in both volume and value for 2020 when compared to 2019, he said Mobile Money Interoperability was the major contributor, processing a total of 43.9 million transactions, which represented an increase of 367 per cent, compared to nine million transactions recorded in 2019.
The GhIPSS Instant Pay (GIP) platform also registered significant growth in transfers from bank accounts to mobile wallets and transfers between bank accounts across banks respectively.
“At the end of 2020, GIP transactions increased by 257% from 1.9 million in 2019 to 6.8 million. GhIPSS also recorded introductory transactions from new services such as Proxy Pay and GhQR code,” he highlighted.
In the case of clearing house or bulk payment systems, Mr. Hesse stated that it processed the second-highest volume of instruments and recorded a 0.10% increase bringing the total volume of cheques processed in 2020 to 14.9 million transactions.
Recording GH¢229 billion in the value of transactions, a nine per cent increase value over the 2019 figure of GH¢209 billion, the clearing house continues to be the preferred channel for processing high values by large corporations.