Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has announced that Ghana has concluded discussions with renowned online payments system, Paypal, to ensure online money transfer.

Paypal supports online money transfers and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods like cheques and money orders.

The firm operates as a payment processor for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a small fee in exchange for benefits such as one-click transactions and password memory.

Vice President Bawumia made this known at the launch of the first phase of the Mobile Money Interoperability System, in Accra on Thursday,

Ghana’s entry into the Paypal system is expected to be completed by the first half of 2020.

According to the roadmap, by the second half of 2019, Ghanaian merchants should be able to receive payments for goods sold online through Paypal platform, while consumers would be able to make payments for goods and services purchased online via Paypal accounts by first half of 2020.

The Vice President said it formed part of the Government’s on-going efforts to build a modern economy to accelerate economic growth and reduce poverty.

Dr Bawumia tasked the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) to put together a working group of stakeholders to work towards meeting the road map.

“It is now up to us, the Bank of Ghana, GhIPSS, Banks, Fintechs, Telcos and Merchants to make this happen within this time frame and also to prepare for the opportunities it presents,” Dr Bawumia noted,

“This presents exciting opportunities for Ghana” Dr Bawumia said, noting; “we should take full advantage of it.

We should see, amongst other developments, a major boost in e-commerce in Ghana. We are building a new and modern economy.”

The launch of the first mobile money payments interoperability system in Ghana is also in furtherance of Government’s drive for a new and modern economy, the Vice President said.

The initiative is expected to largely eliminate the difficulties associated with traditional banking services, such as the difficulty in opening bank accounts, the high costs associated with maintaining a bank account, and the sheer intimidating nature of banking halls.

Furthermore, mobile customers can move money from their mobile money accounts to bank accounts without any hassle and free funds locked up outside the financial system.

The launch of the mobile money interoperability system will enable customers to freely move monies from mobile money to mobile money accounts across different networks.

In that case, customers who have mobile money accounts with MTN can easily transfer or receive money from other networks such as Airtel-Tigo or Vodafone.

Source: GNA