The Board of Directors of IT Systems firm, Sibton Switch has announced the appointment of Mr. Peter Denzil Lawson as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) effective August 1, 2017.

Mr. Lawson is expected to provide critical strategic and operational leadership and direction to guide the operations of the company in its crucial years as it prepares towards the implementation of the Ghana Retail Payment System Infrastructure currently being implemented by the company.

A company statement issued in Accra over the weekend said the new CEO brings to this position many years of international experience and achievements in the payments industry gained from Senior Executive roles with the Royal Bank of Canada, ANZ Group Australia, and MasterCard International among others.

Prior to joining Sibton Switch Systems, Denzil Lawson was CEO of Mercury Payments Services LLC, where he built and launched their United Arab Emirate’s domestic payment scheme.

As CEO of Mercury, Mr. Lawson led the development of the domestic scheme infrastructure and launched Mercury in the UAE. A notable innovation by Mercury has been the enabling of 7 million existing transit cards issued by the Roads and Transport Authority for use at selected Retail POS merchants.

He previously contributed to the development of MasterCard for 12 years in various positions including Head of Business Development, SAMEA; Regional; Manager, MENA; Head of Strategic Business Development, APMEA and Managing Director, ACCESS Prepaid, MEA (a MasterCard subsidiary).

“It is this wealth of experience that Denzil Lawson brings to Sibton Switch Systems with a strategic goal to develop a best-in-class retail and payments system infrastructure for Ghana to promote financial inclusion and place the country at the forefront of the payments industry in Africa”, said Board Chairman, Kwame Amankwah-Twum.

Ghana has embarked on an aggressive campaign to promote financial inclusion among its populace with the aim of ensuring among other things that the less privileged and rural dwellers have access to financial services including banking, savings, payment and transfer services as a means of reducing or ending poverty; an agenda Sibton Switch expects to play vital role in realizing.