The Head of Financial Stability at the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Joseph France, says commencing July 1, all persons who have failed to link their Ghana cards to their bank accounts will be unable to withdraw funds from their bank accounts.

According to him, unlinked accounts will, however, be able to receive deposits till such a time when the owner finally links their Ghana card details to the account.

He noted that the process of linking Ghana cards to bank accounts has no expiry date and clients only have to go to their banking centres to have their Ghana card details and biometric data collected.

The linkage of Ghana cards to bank accounts is a government initiative to weed out fraudsters from the banking sector.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express Business Edition, he said, “The position is that you cannot transact banking, you cannot be involved in banking activity from 1^st July. And so what it means is that you cannot go and withdraw money from your bank if you haven’t linked your Ghana card to your account.

“However, there is no expiry date to when you can do so. Si there’s an expiry date to when you  can transact business, but there’s no expiry date to when you can link your account to your Ghana card. So you go tomorrow, you want to withdraw from your account, if you haven’t linked your account to your Ghana card, you won’t be able to withdraw, but you’d have the opportunity to link your Ghana card to your account then you withdraw.

“And you can continually do so, or anybody who is not should not rush tomorrow or tomorrow next to go and withdraw. If you don’t have business of doing banking transactions to withdraw money, you can go anytime and withdraw money, and you’d be allowed to withdraw only when your account is linked.”

He further explained that “the only deviation which I may have to come in is that if you’re going to put in money – let’s say you have deposits, you’re going to put into your account – you’d be allowed to do so.

“Otherwise, you’d have to take the money home and then these same fraudsters will apprehend you and take the money from you. You’d be allowed to do so, but you’d not be allowed to withdraw. There will be no debits on your account so you’d not be allowed to withdraw.”

However, for Ghanaians who are non-residing in Ghana and diplomatic missions, they can use their passports to conduct all banking transactions.

“The next proviso which is an expansion of what we have said and not to deviate from that but an expansion is that Ghanaians who are living abroad, in other words, non-residents who are Ghanaians who are living abroad who through no fault of theirs have not been able to have access to Ghana cardwill be allowed to use their passports.

“Again the diplomatic missions, the embassies, will be allowed to use their passports to do banking business. aside of this all other persons should have their Ghana cards and should link their Ghana cards before they’re allowed.”

Meanwhile, Dr. France has warned against linking your Ghana crad to your bank account  via social media links.

According to him, this may be the nefarious activities of fraudsters trying to take advantage of the system and phish for the banking details of unsuspecting customers.

He has warned the general public to instead report to their banking centres and have their detail taken there.