Only Ghana Card for all bank transactions, says Ghana’s Central Bank

Ghana’s Central Bank has issued a directive, considered operationally disturbing by some, that the Ghana Card will the only accepted form of identification for banking and financial transactions from the 1st of July 2022.

“In furtherance of its objective of ensuring the safety of the financial system, the Bank of Ghana hereby directs that, with effect from 1st July 2022, the Ghana Card shall be the only identification card that will be used to undertake transactions,” a statement signed by the Bank’s Secretary Sandra Thompson stated.

With a lower than required deployment of the Ghana Card across the country, those who have as yet not received their cards despite going through the registration process and others who are yet to have the opportunity to register for the card, are naturally questioning the time frame for the implementation of the Bank’s directive.

Passports and the Ghana Card have over the last few years become the accepted modes of identification by the banks. The recently replaced voter ID cards are still yet to be accepted by the banks.

With the current July 1, 2022 directive, the Bank of Ghana says the National Identification Authority’s verification transaction platform will be integrated into the Bank of Ghana’s financial monitoring platform to facilitate the mandatory process of identifying and verifying client’s identity.

According to the Bank, this will ensure that all financial transactions performed within the ecosystem are linked to a single identity and information, as well as unique codes for the transactions shared with them, in order to facilitate the identification of initiators/beneficiaries for track and trace purposes.