Zenith Bank’s MasterCard partnership now live in Ghana’s banking system
As part of strategic moves to deepen market dominance, Zenith Bank and Mastercard have extended their partnership in West Africa to Ghana with a drive to go further and deeper in the ECOWAS market.
The new deal will drive issuing a suite of digital payment solutions that include prepaid, debit and credit cards.
Besides, the bank said the introduction of the suite of solutions will ensure all citizens have access to safer ways to pay for goods and services as the payment cards are EMV Chip and PIN enabled.
Apart from the fact that the development is in line with Ghana’s Vision 2020 goals, which sets out plans to accelerate the migration to this global standard, chief executive of Zenith Bank Ghana, Mr. Henry Oroh said “With the rapid progression of the electronic payments industry, our customers are increasingly seeking faster, more secure and smarter ways to pay. To cater to their evolving needs, we have launched this range of internationally-accepted payment cards, making it easier for them to safely access their funds both here in Ghana and abroad.”
He noted that Zenith Bank Ghana offers a cutting edge ICT platform, a passionately innovative team and devotion to the development of top of the range products and services to meet customer needs.
In Ghana, report say millions of Cedis are lost in bank fraud annually and while the losses are not always attributed to card fraud, the increase in card usage especially among the middle class has necessitated the formulation of tougher measures to fight fraud, making the case for the adoption of secure Chip and PIN cards.
In his remarks, Omokehinde Adebanjo, Area Business Head West Africa, Mastercard said “EMV technology protects in-store payments from card fraud. A small chip built into the payment card generates a one-time PIN for every transaction, making it virtually impossible to create counterfeit cards”.
“As this shift gains momentum around the world, a global chip infrastructure is taking shape to counter the threat of fraudulent transactions. We look forward to working with Zenith Bank in Ghana to bring safer payment technologies to the market.
By design, EMV-enabled cards feature an embedded microchip to encrypt information, making it more difficult for unauthorized users to copy or access data on the card. Additionally, the Mastercard prepaid, debit and credit cards will be accepted at millions of acceptance locations and ATM machines in over 210 countries.
Adebanjo added that “Our collaboration with Zenith Bank Ghana is an exciting development, and will give us the opportunity to extend the latest advances in payment technology to benefit all Ghanaians. Currently we are focused on offering our core product suite, but are eager to explore the roll-out of other solutions that will meet the needs and goals outlined by the Vision 2020 strategy. We agree that technology is changing the face of Ghana, and Africa – but there is still so much opportunity and we look forward to working with our partners to develop a cashless Ghana”.
