Ghana Commercial Bank Limited (GCB) will roll out two electronic products by next year. They are MasterCard Prepaid Cards & VISA Electron and Credit Cards.
The Bank will also move into VISA ATM acquisition and VISA Debit card issuing.
This follows the granting of principal status by VISA International to GCB, Ghana's largest Bank and the only Ghanaian bank with principal MasterCard status.
The Head of the E-Banking Centre of GCB, Mr. Kwabena Nyarko, who disclosed this in an interview, said the Bank is currently mapping out the appropriate strategy for Merchant Acquiring and Point of Sale (POS) deployment of GCB MasterCards.
GCB currently offers the following e-banking products and services: Internet Banking (Commernet Plus ), MasterCard Debit Card Issuing, MasterCard ATM Acquiring, Ready Cash (GCB ATM Acquiring only), E-zwich (Prepaid card) and Smart Pay.
The Bank issues three types of un-embossed MasterCard debit card products, namely Gold for high net worth customers, Corporate, for corporate bodies and the Standard which is suitable for all customers.
Mr. Nyarko said E-Banking and e-banking products and services have impacted positively on the Bank's business and its customers.
"Generally, the e-banking products and services have made life much easier and banking much faster and more convenient for customers as well as the bank," he said.
He explained that electronic banking has offered GCB's customers many of the services that the traditional brick-and-mortar branches offer. Additionally, the GCB electronic banking delivery channels have given the customers value added services.
"The convenience of accessing one's bank account from home or any location where there is internet access is surely a value customers appreciate", he added.
The GCB E-banking customers are able to access their bank account and funds for monitoring purposes, withdraw cash (from ATMs), transfer funds from one account to another, initiate and modify standing orders, initiate cheque/savings withdrawal book requests, download transaction information, request online statement of account, initiate investment activity and bill presentment and payment among other value-added services.
Mr. Nyarko said "banking around the clock is indeed a reality for GCB customers".
On the time line for honouring requests for GCB internet banking, he said this takes three working days to enable customers enjoy Commernet Plus.
Mr. Nyarko explained that Readycash (GCB ATM) takes a maximum of five working days on receipt of application from the Bank's branches while GCB MasterCard takes a maximum of 10 working days on receipt of application.
The Electronic Banking Centre was established during the third quarter of 2008 to manage the bank's electronic banking products and services while developing new ones. The Centre currently manages MasterCard Un-embossed Debit, MasterCard ATM acquiring, ReadyCash (i.e. GCB's proprietary card), and Commernet Plus.