Adnan Adams Mohammed
In the next weeks, banks operating in the country will start accepting the National Identification Authority’s cards (ECOWAS card) for any financial transactions.
According to the Ghana Association of Bankers, it is in talks with other stakeholders to consider the implementation of a parallel system that will see banks accept the new National Identification Authority’s cards for financial transactions.
The Association indicated that the talks also includes considering other ID cards which are not being accepted currently by various financial institutions.
“The National Identification card is coming on stream and in the background, we are working with the National Identification Authority and the third party provider of that system to ensure that we can have a parallel system where over the coming weeks, you will hear that you can go to a bank with your National ID card, and you can be positively identified”, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Association of Bankers, John Awuah disclosed in an interview last week.
“Once that comes on stream and the parallel phase runs out, by the law that set up the National Identification System, that becomes the primary form of identifying customers for banking transactions and then as banks, you will have no choice but to comply”.
Mr Awuah further reiterated that discussions are still ongoing to ensure that the new voter’s ID card becomes part of the ID cards accepted by banks for financial transactions even as government works towards implementing the use of the national ID cards.
“The point is that, the voter’s ID cards is one of the many cards accepted by banks for financial transactions. Unfortunately, since we came up with new cards, the third party that has a relationship with the Electoral Commission to have that database refreshed or updated so that the banks could positively identify customers who produce voters ID cards for banking transmissions, that kind of discussion has not been concluded”.
“It is sad that as banks we do not have a say in that discussion because we are not a party to that deliberation. The message I want customers to know is that, if you go to a bank and your voter’s ID card is not accepted, it is not because the bank doesn’t want to accept it but because the bank has no mechanism for authenticating the new voter’s ID cards. Can you imagine if somebody presents a card to conduct a transaction and then on the flip side you find that the card is a duplicate or something else, we don’t want to be in such a situation? We do these things to protect our customers, and we hope that they will bear with us during this time where we are going through the process of integrating the new voter’s ID card into our operations for identifying customers”.
