The Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) will be working closely with banks to drive patronage for payment on gh-link hybrid Point of Sales (POS) machines.
This is according to the Chief Executive of GhIPSS Archie Hesse, who explained that a lot of efforts will be made to drive the agenda for the public to use their domestic cards to make payments.
GhIPSS last year collaborated with banks to embark on a campaign to increase awareness about express clearing of cheques and Automated Clearing House (ACH), and the result has been an about-94 percent increase in the volume of express cheque transactions and over 100 percent increase in ACH Direct Debit transactions in 2015 compared to 2014.
Other GhIPSS initiatives also saw growth in patronage.
Following these successes chalked uplast year, GhIPSS wants to also extend the drive to gh-link hybrid POSs.
Although Mr. Hesse admits it will take a lot of efforts to get the critical mass of people to shop and pay with their cards, he is hopeful that together with the Financial Institutions a lot can be achieved.
Mr. Hesse noted that besides deployment of more hybrid POSs, there will be several other activities to encourage patronage.
The GhIPSS boss also hinted that financial institutions have increased their requests for POSs, which they will give to their merchant customers.
He commended the banks for their role in promoting electronic payments and urged them to create more products and promotions around such payment options to support the cash-lite agenda.
Currently, a number of major shopping outlets, restaurants, pharmacies, and beauty parlours in the Accra-Tema area and other key outlets in the regional capitals also have the hybrid POSs.
Although POS transactions remain low, they however experienced a 52 percent growth in transactions during 2015.