Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) has commended banks and other institutions for promoting the patronage of electronic payment systems.

GhIPSS, a subsidiary of Bank of Ghana (BoG), said such efforts would eventually lead to a significant reduction in cash payments.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GhIPSS, Archie Hesse, disclosed this while commenting on the introduction of the Remote Cheque Capturing service by Guaranty Trust Bank (GT Bank).

The service enables corporate customers in particular, who handle lots of cheques, to scan the cheques for processing from the comfort of their offices, without going to the banking halls.

It will bring a lot of convenience to such customers and save them time, cost and the stress of moving to banking halls just to pay in cheques.

Mr Hesse used the opportunity to encourage banks to educate their corporate customers on how to use Direct Credit to pay salaries.

He said it was unacceptable in this era for any workers’ salary to delay in view of the introduction of the Direct Credit, an electronic payment option under the Automated Clearing House (ACH) system.

Mr. Hesse noted that while the banks and allied institutions were promoting electronic payment products for corporate customers, it was equally necessary to drive their retail or individual customers to also use their ATM cards to shop on Point of Sales (PoS) terminals.

According to him, with the rollout of the hybrid PoSes, which accepts both local ATM and e-Zwich cards, customers should be encouraged to rather use their ATM cards to shop instead of withdrawing cash in order to shop.

The use of ATM cards to shop will reduce the pressure on ATM outlets, a situation which will inure to the benefit of the banks.

Banking is increasingly becoming competitive, and it will take the use of technology to bring convenience and enhanced services, industry watchers have stated.