Accra, May 11, GNA - Mondex Ghana Limited (MXG), a joint venture company established by Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) and the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), on Thursday entered into an agreement with Hitachi for the supply of a smart card and an electronic banking system.

The deal, worth about two million dollars, will involve the deployment of Mondex Electronic-Cash system in the banking sector and is expected to form the bedrock of an e-cash banking project in West Africa.

The scheme, which will be in phases, will start with an initial 5,000 cards being issued out to the staff of the GCB and ADB and some selected merchants. The second phase will be the launch of a closed campus in Accra with a target of 50,000 consumers and over 500 merchants and vending machine points. Mr William Panford Bray, Managing Director of the GCB, said at a press conference on Thursday that, with only about 10 per cent of the population having bank accounts, there was a limited merit to implementing a traditional transaction based on an electronic banking system.

"By using an electronic cash, the member banks of Mondex Ghana are able to leapfrog these systems and competition in the market place in the most cost-effective way," he said.

Dr. Percival A. Kuranchie, Managing Director of the ADB, said the company chose Hitachi because it could provide a one stop solution to their operational issues.

"Hitachi have set realistic roll-out and management plans and the project will be live in the second half of year 2000," he said. Mr Ian Tait, Executive General Manager, Hitachi Europe, said the contract in Ghana is the first of its kind in the West Africa sub-region. "This is a strategic win for us and firstly represents our commitment to working with organisations to make e-commerce and e-banking work," he said.