The National Identification Authority (NIA) has announced plans to introduce an electronic wallet (e-wallet) feature on the Ghana Card, allowing cardholders to load money onto the card and use it for transactions across various platforms.
Executive Secretary of the NIA, Yayra Korku Deku, said the move is part of efforts to optimize the authority’s operations and generate revenue to sustain its activities.
“What it means is that you can put money on your Ghana Card and use it to do transactions. That is to pay for anything that you do. And we are hoping that that one will generate a huge sum of money for us,” Deku explained to Joy News’ James Avedzi in an interview.
He revealed that financial institutions have already expressed interest in supporting the initiative.
“In fact, we received a proposal from banks that want to come and house it, but what we want to do is we want to build a uniform platform so that once we build it, all these banks can all come on board,” he noted.
Deku further disclosed that the NIA is exploring partnerships with other institutions to expand the scope of the Ghana Card’s functionality.
“You’ve heard that Gold Board and others want to do tokenization. So we are also looking at that one where we can come in on to help them.
“So they adopt the Ghana Card as the means of the transaction where they are tokenizing,” he said.
Outlining the card’s capabilities, he added; “You know, the Ghana Card has three profiles on it. The e-ID, the e-passport, and the e-wallet.
“The e-passport has already been activated. The next one we want to do is the e-wallet.
“Once we activate the e-wallet, what it means is that you can put money on your Ghana Card and use it to do transactions, that is to pay for anything that you do.”
