Accra, May 23, GNA- The 12th African Regional Conference of the Society of the Worldwide Inter-bank Financial Telecommunication is underway in Accra.

The conference, on the theme: "Market Infrastructure, Your Foundation For Growth", is the first to he held in the West Africa sub-region and is being attended by over 300 delegates, mostly bankers and Information Technology experts, from both French and English speaking communities in Africa.

It will explore the broad range of payment markets for both high and low value payments.

Dr Paul Acquah, Governor of the Bank of Ghana who addressed the meeting said successful policies for macro-economic stability environment were critical to develop a successful payment infrastructure.

Speaking on the topic: "Improving Payment Infrastructure for Faster Economic Growth: the African Challenge", he said with the rapid global movement towards what might be called a cashless economy, the concern of policy makers was how to achieve a balance between currency notes from a central bank and the wide array of commercial bank money in the form of payment instruments.

He listed some of the benefits associated with electronic payments as the significant expansion in sales volumes of goods and services, reduction in barriers to instant credit and liquidity and the easing of geographic restrictions on trade and exchange. The overall result is an increase productivity.

Dr Acquah said telecommunication network development, acceptance networks, credit bureaux and education, were critical major infrastructure networks to make electronic payments very effective. He called for the mobilisation of the necessary investments to put in place the critical components of payment infrastructure and settlement systems. 23 May 05