Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) has launched G-Money to send and receive money, buy goods, pay for services and move funds within the financial ecosystem. G-Money will also afford customers a variety of financial and micro-financial services at competitive rates. Speaking at the launch of G-Money in Accra on Thursday, Managing Director of GCB Bank Raymond Sowah said: “…G-Money has come at a time when conventional banks and other financial institutions have been charged to create better access to financial services to the excluded population.” He said, “The G-Money wallet is the first step in the customer’s journey to opening and operating a GCB Bank account.” According to Mr Sowah, the service will be fully operationalized in January 2020. G-Money affords customers the freedom to perform transactions regardless of their mobile network operator. Electronic money Earlier, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) said it has granted GCB Bank Ghana authorisation to issue electronic money similar to what is popularly known as “mobile money”.   Speaking at a press conference in Accra last November, Dr Ernest Addison said, “In its issuance of electronic money, GCB Bank would create electronic value backed by equivalent cash which will afford customers to have access to electronic wallets issued by GCB Bank (Ghana). The GCB Bank plans to leverage on its 189 branch network to offer its own agency banking services.”   He clarified that this is not a form of cryptocurrency or a bitcoin, “it is just electronic money backed by currency. So GCB cannot create money; they are only having an electronic representation of the cedi that the Bank of Ghana puts into circulation. So it is not crypto.”