The Ghana Interbank Payments and Settlements Systems (GhIPSS) is set to lead the digital financial ecosystem beyond just ensuring financial inclusion to supporting the overall financial health of individuals and businesses through the provision of solutions that are affordable, accessible, secure and responsive to customer needs.
The CEO of GhIPSS, Clara B. Arthur made this commitment at the recent past Ghana-UK Business Summit held in London under the auspices of President John Dramani Mahama.
Speaking during a panel discussion on the topic “Unlocking Financial Transformation through Fintech and Digital Assets in Ghana”, she noted that Ghana has made significant progress in creating the enabling environment for digital financial services and fintech innovation, with the Bank of Ghana being at the forefront of the process.
She explained that the Bank of Ghana has played a pivotal role through progressive regulatory frameworks and harmonized policies that provide clarity, stability, and confidence for investors, leading to tangible industry-wide drive towards churning out solutions which are deepening financial inclusion by the day.
These deliberate efforts, she observed, have positioned Ghana as one of Africa’s leading markets for digital financial services and innovation.
Clara Arthur however noted that the conversation is increasingly moving beyond simply expanding access to finance, saying that “While financial inclusion remains important, the next phase of growth must focus on improving the overall financial health of individuals and businesses by providing solutions that are affordable, accessible, secure, and responsive to customer needs.”
GhIPSS’ role in the scheme of things
The GhIPSS CEO further highlighted the importance of Ghana’s national payment infrastructure in supporting this transformation, saying that GhIPSS, as the national payment systems infrastructure provider, has been instrumental in enabling seamless, secure, and interoperable digital transactions across banks, fintechs, mobile money operators, businesses, and consumers.
To further convince potential investors at the summit, she underscored the strategic importance of a national switch in accelerating the growth of the fintech ecosystem, explaining that a robust national switch reduces the need for multiple bilateral integrations, lowers the cost of market entry, enables interoperability, and provides a trusted platform on which innovators can build and scale products.
This, she said, creates a more efficient and attractive environment for investment by allowing fintechs to focus on innovation and customer value rather than infrastructure challenges.
According to Clara Arthur, trusted and resilient payment infrastructure is essential for driving innovation, expanding financial inclusion, supporting economic growth, and creating opportunities for investment, adding that continued collaboration among regulators, financial institutions, fintechs, and development partners will be critical to unlocking the next phase of Ghana’s digital financial transformation and ensuring that the benefits are shared broadly across the economy.
Months ago, at the launch of State of Inclusive Instant Payment Systems (SIIPS) in Africa, in Eswatini, Clara B. Arthur told Techfocus24 that GhIPSS was poised to migrate its instant payments rails from ISO 8583 model to the ISO 20022 to ensure easy connectivity for all financial service providers and support all kinds of financial transactions, a move she believes will improve the status of Ghana’s instant pay system from a progressed one to a mature one.
She also said, at the time, that steps are far advanced to rollout mobile money agent interoperability to complete the mobile money interoperability cycle. This will allow mobile money agents to transfer e-cash from a single wallet to all wallets on all networks, thereby eliminating the limitations in the way of individuals and businesses when accessing their funds at mobile money agent points.
At the moment, Bank of Ghana and its stakeholders are also doing a complete review of transaction fees in the entire digital finance ecosystem with affordability, consumer protection and overall financial health of consumers in mind.
All of these efforts are designed to further deepen financial inclusion and also set the tone for industry players to innovate and comfortably churn out solutions that supports the overall financial wellbeing of individuals and businesses.
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