Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB), the nation’s premier bank has entered into partnership with Western Union, a worldwide money transfer service provider to offer remittances in the country.

GCB, with 282 service outlets, thus becomes the 11th banking and financial institution to partner Western Union in this direction.

Launching the partnership at a short ceremony in Accra yesterday, the Deputy Managing Director (MD) in a charge of Operations at GCB, Samuel Sarpong said the bank has made significant investments in enhancing its system and technology platform.

“We have leveraged our robust IT platform to introduce a number products and services,” he said.

He said GCB, under its ‘Easy Banking’ agenda, is offering customers alerts of transactions on their accounts through mobile phones and allowing finance directors of corporations to pay salaries of employees from their offices.

“GCB customers have access to their accounts twenty four seven, thanks to a reliable network of 110 ATM nationwide with close to 99 per cent up time and full benefits of internet banking.”

Mr. Sarpong said GCB has introduced mechanism that is ensuring that the bank offers personal loans within 24 hours and promised the bank’s commitment towards excellence in the banking sector.

“It is the vision of this bank to transform GCB into a world-class bank and we will continue to ride on the back of our robust systems and technology platform to bring the best in banking products and services.”

The deputy MD said the bank’s numerous branches and its solid IT platform would enhance the prospects of the partnership, adding “we have tested our systems over the past few weeks to ensure a smooth take-off.”

Leticia Tagoe, Head of International Banking Division of GCB, said as at October, the bank had mobilized $198,703, 238 as total foreign exchange from transactions in the money transfer business alone.

“The partnership with Western Union will greatly increase the values and the underlying revenue earned by the bank especially when the need to increase commissions has become very necessary.”

She said the Global Transfer Department of International Banking Division has completed the training of all customer service representatives, systems administrators, operations/retail managers, who are to handle remittances from Western union.

She said the team will also act as the back-up team for all the branches in the resolution of all operational related issues.