Bank Of Ghana And Banks Set Up Ghana Interbank Payment And Settlement System (GIPSS)

The Bank of Ghana and the Ghana Association of Bankers have agreed to establish the Ghana Interbank Payments and Settlement System (GIPSS). GIPSS would be an independent entity responsible for the different components of Ghana’s payment and settlement system infrastructure and would include the following:

i. National Switch (the Common Platform)

ii. Biometric Smart Card

iii. Cheque Clearing

iv. Codeline Cheque Truncation

v. Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS), and

vi. Automated Clearing House (ACH)

All banks would be members of GIPSS either directly or access the system through member banks. It is expected that the National Switch, biometric smartcard, codeline cheque truncation, and Automated Clearing House would be installed by the end of 2007 and this should provide Ghana with an efficient, robust and modern payment system infrastructure.

The GIPSS would also significantly reduce the usage of cash for business transactions and move the economy towards electronic payments, with the National Switch allowing ATM interoperability between banks. The system would extend services to the unbanked and underbanked segments of the population. It would allow banks, savings and loans, and other financial and non-financial institutions (such as Government, Universities, Cocobod, SSNIT, NHIS, large enterprises, hospitals, public transport, etc) to deploy products for the banked and unbanked that they have thus far been unable to do. The biometric (finger print) smartcard, for example, is designed to function in location without electricity and telecommunication equipment and eliminates the need to have basic literacy and numeracy to operate a bank account, and it also offers protection against fraud. The cost of electronic transactions should also reduce as banks would be able to pass on the advantages of economies of scale to be derived from this cooperative effort.

DATE OF ISSUE: MAY 10, 2007