The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has directed licensed and regulated financial institutions to undertake all transactions with the Ghana Card, effective July1, 2022.
A statement issued in Accra on Wednesday signed by the Secretary of the BoG, Ms Sandra Thompson, and copied to the Ghanaian Times, said the directive was in line with the BoG’s objective of ensuring the safety of the financial system, pursuant to Regulation 7 of the National Identity Register, 2012 (L.I. 2111).
It said the directive covers financial institutions such as banks, specialised deposit-taking institutions, non-deposit-taking institutions; payment service providers and dedicated electronic money issuers and forex bureaus and credit reference bureaus.
The statement further directed all financial institutions to take the appropriate steps to update customer records with the Ghana Card, in consonance with Section 30 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2020 (Act 1044) and Regulation 12 of the Anti-Money Laundering Regulations, 2011 (L.I. 1987).
“For Know Your Customer purposes, the National Identification Authority verification transaction platform will be integrated into the Bank of Ghana’s financial monitoring platform,” the statement said.
It also said the directive was to “ensure that all financial transactions performed within the ecosystem are linked to one identity and information, and unique codes for the transactions shared with the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to facilitate the identification of initiators/beneficiaries for track and trace purposes.”
The statement said “Notwithstanding, the objective will include but not limited to transactions by Banks, Non-bank Financial Institutions and Mobile Money Operators (MMOs).”
“The public is to note that no other form of identification will be accepted for financial transactions in all Bank of Ghana regulated financial institutions after the effective date stated above,” the statement said.
In a related development, the BoG had described as false a news item circulating on social media that the bank had sacked 90 per cent of recently recruited staff for presenting fake certificate.
“It is not true that 90 per cent of recently recruited staff were found to have presented fake certificates,” the BoG said in statement issued in Accra on Tuesday.
The statement said the story circulating on social media was twisted to misinform the general public, adding that it was only two staff who had been sacked for presenting fake certificates.
“The statement circulating on social media is twisted to misinform the general public. It is not true that 90 per cent recently recruited staff were found to have presented fake certificates. The incident being referred to involves two members of staff whose appointments were terminated for providing fake certificates as part of their employment documentation,” it said.
The statement said “as part of due diligence processes during and post recruitment, those found to have presented forged documentation including academic and professional certificates are either dropped from the recruitment process or their services terminated if already on-boarded and on probation.”
It said dismissals were a regular human resource management function for staff whose conduct was unsatisfactory or had committed an offence, as stipulated in the Bank’s Handbook on Human Resource.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
