Ghana continues to make steady growth in the patronage of electronic products and services, as the third quarter performance report by the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GhIPSS) shows a growth of over 146.1 per cent in the volume of transactions in the first nine months of 2021.
A total of 125.8 million transactions were processed from January to September of this year compared to 51.1 million transactions over the same period in 2020.
The value of the transactions for the same period, however, recorded a lower growth of 36.1 per cent to 241.5 billion cedis.
The very high growth in volume strongly suggests that more people are patronising electronic payment channels, an indication that the cash-lite agenda is on course.
The GhIPSS third quarter performance report also revealed that almost all GhIPSS services recorded growth in volume and value of transactions.
The only exception, e-zwich however, recorded marginal growth in the value of transactions.
The report also demonstrates that the public continues to strongly prefer real time electronic payments.
The GhIPSS Instant Pay (GIP) platform (including GhQR), which ensures that interbank payments or transfers are received instantly, posted the highest growth in volume of transactions.
It went up as high as 407.66 per cent from about 4.3 million to almost 22 million transactions in the first nine months of the year compared to the same period last year.
Another real time service, the Mobile Money Interoperability (MMI) recorded 216.45 per cent growth in volume from almost 27 million to about 85.3 million transactions.
The growing performance in the volume of real time transactions according to the report were largely because of increased awareness about the existence of these services.
GhIPSS together with its partner institutions such as financial institutions, Fin Techs and Telcos, have over the past year embarked on series of activities to educate the public on these services and their benefits.
The most recent of activities were the GhQR Experience Fairs held in six shopping malls to create awareness about GhQR services. GhIPSS also organised different payment service webinars for industry players which deepen knowledge about the services.
As the business activity picks up in the last quarter, patronage of these electronic payment services is projected to witness further growth in both volumes and values.
The very high growth in the volumes of the GIP and MMI far out performs Clearing House services such as cheque clearing and Automated House Clearing which together recorded less than eight per cent as well as gh-link services which posted a growth of 14.13 per cent.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
