Dr. Ernest Addision
GOVERNOR OF the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addision, says he is enthused about the growing confidence of the public in Ghana’s financial technology (FINTECH) sector in spite of the Covid-19 era.
According to him, although technology had been a driving force for change in the financial sector for some time now, the Covid-19 pandemic provided a strong leverage case point for the global financial technology sector.
“In Ghana, the digitisation agenda, including financial digitisation which began long before the pandemic, received an added push during the pandemic, evidenced by the dramatic increase in the growth of digital financial services,” he said.
Mr. Addison was speaking at the B&FT Ghana Economic Forum 2021, themed, “Strengthening home-grown policies to underpin the national digitization drive and shared financial prosperity.”
This year’s three-day forum will embrace various segments across the corporate divide over a period of three power-packed days. There will be a day dedicated to young people, who are an integral part of development. The Youth Economic Forum will be under the theme: Driving job creation through entrepreneurship, technology and innovation.
The third day billed Energy Day, will also bring together, experts and key players from the energy sector. They will hold their discussions under the theme: ‘Africa Energy Sector: Ensuring the medium to Long-term sustainability of the West Africa Sub-Region’.
Dr. Addision said there were more than 19 million active mobile money accounts driving the digital financial services industry which, prior to the pandemic, stood at 14.4 million.
“Similarly, mobile money interoperability continued to show strong growth, recording 365 percent growth in volume and 651 percent in value between 2019 and 2020. As at September this year, interoperability transactions grew by 216 percent in volume and 350 percent in value compared to same period last year.”
He said the figure indicated that the Covid-19 pandemic brought households and firms into the fintech space while increasing their confidence and preference for digital payment options.
Chief Executive Officer of the Business and Financial Times, (B&Ft) Dr. Godwin Acquaye, said the company was of the firm belief that Ghana had troves of potential across diverse sectors to align with the emergence of the digital dawn.
He said “We have seen a digital revolution across various sectors of the economy and these interventions are driving change and boosting productivity. We are indeed in the era of digitisation and we ought to embrace it.”
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri