The Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems, has held a 3-day training workshop on the use of the Automated Clearing House (ACH) in Accra at the weekend.
It was organized for selected staff of the country’s 28 main banks, aim at enhancing their understanding and skills of the ACH application.
A resource person from Radix Consulting Corporation from the United States of American and staff of Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS), took the participants through various aspects of the Clearing House system.
The ACH, which was launched two years ago to enable quicker and safer interbank transfers, is an electronic form of transferring recurring payments or receipts.
The system can be used for payments of salaries, dividends as well as to receive premiums, subscriptions and payments of utility bills and comes in two forms, namely Direct Credit and Direct Debit.
The training workshop, which was a follow up to others organsied in the past, took participants through the use and benefits of Direct Credit and Direct Debit, ACH Risk and a brief overview of the rules guiding their usage.
It also touched on the development of ideas that could be used to create marketing programmes to educate the public on the payment system.
The workshop discussed how ACH could be successfully implemented within each bank taking cognizance of their specific needs.
Various aspects of implementing ACH including charges, infrastructure technology, operations, customer care and business development were also treated.
The resource persons also covered the legal issues, risk and compliance.
Commenting on the training, the Chief Executive of GhIPSS, Mr Archie Hesse, emphasized the need for the business development departments of banks to see payment systems such as ACH as tools that could be turned into various products tailored to suit the needs of customers.
He said various products and services could be carved out of both Direct Debit and Direct Credit and marketed to customers and clients.
Mr. Hesse urged the Heads of Business Development of the Financial Institutions to collaborate with the Operations and IT department of their respective banks, to fashion out products to meet their specific needs as well as that of their customers.
He said there would be regular training programmes to ensure that the banks were up to date on the ACH.
Source: GNA
