GhIPSS targets a million GACH transactions monthly - CEO

Accra , Sept 19, GNA - The Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) has stepped up its campaign to significantly increase the patronage for the Ghana Automated Clearing House (GACH).

Mr Archie Hesse, Chief Executive Officer, disclosed this in an interview in Accra as the company prepares to engage different groups of people on the benefits of using GACH.

Mr Hesse said GhIPSS would meet with the different groups to educate them on the relevance of GACH.

GhIPSS has already held workshops for banks which have resulted in a jump in the use of the payment system by banks for salary payments.

The electronic form of payment enables a customer to make recurring payment at predetermined date electronically while a service provider is also enabled to use this payment system to receive recurring and regular payments from its customers electronically.

GACH comes in two main forms, the Direct Credit which is used to make payments and Direct Debit which is used to receive payments.

Following the seminar for banks, the use of Direct Credit has more than doubled in the first half of the year from 50,000 payments every month to 110,000 payments every month.

“The volume of transactions keeps going up and GhIPSS hopes to hit the half a million mark by the end of the year. Direct Debit on the other hand is yet to pick up significantly although it has also seen its volumes experience multiple growths,” Mr Hesse said.

He said the strategy was to focus more attention on Direct Debit to also grow its volume to half a million which would bring the total GACH transactions to one million every month.

He said the company was therefore working closely with the banks and other organizations to realize that target.

Mr Hesse emphasized the benefits of GACH stating that it was a more efficient way of making payments that were made on regular basis such as payment or receipt of utility bills or servicing of hire purchase and other credit facilities.

He explained that for people who were paying for items bought on hire purchase or making other payments by depositing leafs of postdated cheques, it was a lot better to resort to the GACH Direct Credit.

“Why do you have to deplete your cheque book when you can just go to the bank for GACH which is a one off instruction,” he asked.

Mr Hesse added that in the same vein, organizations such as utility companies and other service providers need not saddle themselves with piles of cheque leafs with varied dates and amounts when such regular or recurring payments could be received electronically through Direct Debit.

GNA