News

Interbank ATM switch catching on in Ghana

December 17, 2012

Since the introduction of Ghana's national switch activation last month, Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems said customer use of the ATMs of other banks has experienced significant growth in transactions per week.

Using an ATM in the Interbank ATM Transaction Switching platform lets customers use their local cards at ATMs of other banks. According to My Joy Online, these banks now include Barclays Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Ghana Commercial Bank, Ecobank and Stanbic Bank and 10 others.

In the first month following activation of the interbank switch the increase in transactions was slight, but in the following month, transaction numbers increased by 76 percent.

Speaking to Ghana's national assembly, Archie Hesse, Chief Executive of GhIPSS, said that while there were charges for customers to use other banks' ATMs, these were offset by the convenience of having access to cash.

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