GCB Bank Limited, Ghana’s largest and first indigenous bank has partnered Eliho Ghana Ltd. to facilitate the transfer and receipt of funds in the cocoa farming and purchasing ecosystem, using the G-Money platform.

The G-Money/Eliho partnership is an outcome of the bank’s interest in providing financial inclusion for the partially banked and unbanked population of the country and to provide smooth financial operation support for Eliho and other supply chain networks and partners.

The G-Money platform will also enable Eliho to pay purchasing clerks (PCs) with virtual funds transferred onto their mobile wallets whilst the PCs will be able to transfer the value of each farmer’s cocoa sales real-time onto their mobile wallets.

G-Money is a telco-agnostic mobile money service that enables both customers and non-customers of GCB to transact using e-value received on their phones.

Eliho Ghana Ltd., in collaboration with Touton SA, which has been a trading partner of Ghana Cocoa Board for over 50 years and the past two years have designed a comprehensive sustainable sourcing model where farmers in their supply chain have access to Rural Service Centers (RSCs) that serve as one-stop-shop at the district level.

This enables them to nurture a network of youth entrepreneurs called Cocoa Tech to deliver critical and essential services at the community level including access to finance among others.

The Eliho/Touton initiative has facilitated the onboarding of district managers, purchasing clerks and smallholder farmers onto digital platforms for the digitisation of their financial transactions, which has been made possible by GCB’s G-Money services.

With this partnership, all cocoa farmers producing for purchase by Purchasing Clerks (PCs) have the singular convenience of receiving payment for their produce via mobile transfer.

“This is a very exciting time for Eliho and its farmers as the service goes to significantly reduce the risk of loss of funds and eliminates the risk of theft resulting from carrying physical cash, along the value chain. In this particular partnership Eliho has access to the service by both the Web portal and the use of a mobile handset,” a statement issued on the deal indicated.

Managing Director of Eliho, Mr Nicholas Kumah, at the official signing ceremony, stated that the G-Money digital platform will provide great relief to the supply chain through the secured consolidated cocoa district managers account, ensuring the real-time availability of monies to purchasing clerks.

“This enhances transparency, accountability, traceability and security. This platform will also reduce financial misappropriation due to the shortened time in converting released cash into cocoa and sold back to COCOBOD,” he said.

Deputy Managing Director of Finance, GCB, Socrates Afram, expressed his excitement about the partnership as the service would ensure availability, access, and the smooth transfer and payment of funds.

He described the G-Money platform as fast, secure, efficient and reliable for all users, adding that it would offer convenience for all stakeholders in the cocoa supply chain.