HEADING FOR CASHLESS SOCIETY

THE national electronic payment system, popularly called e-zwich, was launched in Accra yesterday by President John Agyekum Kufuor.
The new payment system is a biometrics smart card which works both online and off-line and is meant to ensure cashless transactions.
The e-zwich links the payment systems of all licensed banks and non-banking financial institutions, for example, savings and loans companies, credit unions, money transfer institutions and rural banks, in the country.
The card can also be used to perform other banking and retail functions that include cash withdrawals, payment for goods and services, money transfer, salary and wage payments and making bill payment from any e-zwich point of sale (POS) or ATMS across the country.
This innovative system to enhance business transactions is commendable and the DAILY GRAPHIC hopes that the e-zwich will not be affected by the common national malice of frustrating the implementation for personal gain, as is the case with many good initiatives launched in the past.
Many good programmes launched in the past, such as the National Health Insurance Scheme, the Metro Mass Transit, the Ghana School Feeding Programme and the Capitation Grant, meant to speed up the national development agenda are still bedevilled with bottlenecks because of man-made problems.
As President Kufuor said, it is our expectation that the e-zwich will help “small and medium-scale businesses and those involved in micro-credit transactions to take advantage of this new platform to be linked to the financial system aso as to benefit from the various services that the financial sector can offer”.
Presently, a large section of our population does not patronise our banking system and consequently large sums of cash are held up outside the banking system, thereby placing such money at the mercy of burglaries, fire and floods.
In a bid to mop up excess liquidity and make transactions more friendly, the Bank of Ghana last year introduced the new Ghana cedi. The introduction of the new currency has reduced considerably the burden of carrying large sums of money to effect payment and perform other forms of business.
However, its introduction has not led to a cashless business environment as pertains in most advanced countries.
Hopefully, this latest innovation will guarantee the lifespan of the notes and bring about transparency in the physical market as far as payments are concerned. Some members of the business community continue to handle our money in very non-conventional ways. They deface the notes with oil and other chemicals, giving them a very awful scent.
The DAILY GRAPHIC recalls with pain the fraud that has bedevilled government payrolls.
Some time in the 1980s, the government introduced the policy where all government institutions and parastatals were asked to channel the salaries of their employees through the banks in an effort to reduce fraud, especially the one linked to ‘ghost’ workers.
Unfortunately, the country continues to search for a solution to the over-bloated payroll system of government institutions.
The DAILY GRAPHIC, therefore, hopes that the e-zwich will prove useful in sanitising the country's financial system and bring credibility to the payroll system of the Controller and Accountant-General's Department.
It is also our wish that this new system will lead to a situation where our banking halls will no longer intimidate ordinary people but provide the congenial setting for easy access to financial services.