The Ghana Cooperative Susu Collectors Association says about 85% of its members now use some form of technology in their operations.

According to the association, this forms part of their digitization agenda.

Susu is an age-old saving system where a person called a susu collector visits individuals to collect cash deposits daily for a month.

The money is subsequently returned to the contributor at the end of the month and a fee paid to the collector.

This has always been done manually but the General Manager of the Association, Edmund Benjamin-Addy said conscious efforts are being made to prioritize technology in their operations.

“What is happening is that over the years, susu collectors have been doing business on a manual basis. Back in 2016, we started championing the digitization agenda for susu collectors, and today we can say that about 85% of our members have now started using at least a little software to be able to undertake their data processing and their day-to-day activities.”

“To us, it is a very good platform in the sense that these susu collectors are not people who are just operating in the cities but also in certain towns or other remote areas. So for us, they are able to reach a lot of people as compared to what they used to do and even it has gone a long way to be able to bring sanity into their day-to-day reporting activities in terms of their transactions and also providing monthly reports for their business.”

The General Manager of the Ghana Cooperative Susu Collectors Association spoke to Citi Business News on the sidelines of a presentation of some digital equipment to his outfit by the GIZ.

According to a press statement by GIZ Ghana the presentation of the equipment is “in a bid to build the capacity of players in Ghana’s microfinance sector. The donation forms part of a strategy to equip industry players with tools that meet the demands brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In his speech, Head of Programmes for Sustainable Economic Development at GIZ Ghana, Mr Detlev Axel Jahn, said “we hope that the association will make good use of these laptops and ensure that they deliver quality and timely reports to the Bank of Ghana.”