Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems Limited (GhIPSS), a Bank of Ghana subsidiary, is bringing biometric banking to the country’s underserved. Together with payments solutions provider Ingenico Group as well as Rural Financial Institutions and Agent Networks, the bank has launched a biometric POS terminal that links individuals’ fingerprints to their bank cards.
The organizations have so far deployed 6,000 of the terminals in the country, with the devices being used for a range of activities including salary disbursement and bill payments. In developing the solution, the bank and its associates were aiming to use biometrics to build trust among populations in remote areas who rely largely on cash for their financial transactions. The idea was to “bring the bank to remote areas,” explained GhIPSS CEO Archie Hesse in a statement, adding, “People don’t have to travel a long distance to have access to their funds.”
The deployment may indicate a growing interest in biometric technology in Ghana. Electoral officials in the country have been planning to use biometric technology for voter verification in this year’s general election, and such technology has already been used in lower-level elections; now, with biometric tech being used in financial transactions for citizens even in remote areas, the technology is becoming even more mainstream.
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July 8, 2016 – by Alex Perala
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