The Bank of Ghana will soon introduce a national Biometric Smart Card to address the shortcomings of the existing debit cards which cater for only a fraction of the population. The Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, who announced this at the launch of new products by Amalgamated Bank Limited said the smart card would allow financial institutions to deploy products for the bank and the unbanked. The new products are Amal Easysave, AmalBank Pay Advance Salary Scheme, Executive Savings Account and Pearl Account. Dr Bawumia said the current debit card being used by financial institutions would not be easily accessed by the public due to limited infrastructure, personal safety and security. “The Biometric Smart card, for example, is designed to function in locations without electricity and telecommunication equipment and eliminates the need to have basic literacy to operate a bank account,” he said. Dr Bawumia also said that the cost of electronic transactions will also reduce as banks would be able to pass on the advantage to economics of scale to be derived from the move. He said that the BoG will establish a national switch to allow the establishment of a common platform for payments transactions in the country. This, he explained, would result in the integration of all existing bank switches to join the common switch at a reduced cost. “The national switch will have the capability to deal with transactions that take place both off and online in rural areas,” he said. Dr Bawumia said that the new switch would allow the interoperability of all Automated Teller Machines and the settlement of payments transactions by customers of different banks. Credit: Ghanaian Times