Ghana should capitalise on democratic credentials
The Managing Director (MD) of HFC Bank, Mr Robert Le Hunte, says Ghana should capitalise on its rich democratic credentials to attract foreign investors to make the country their base to reach the rest of Africa.
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Speaking to the Graphic Business in Accra yesterday, Mr Le Hunte said just as the Republic Bank, the parent company of HFC Bank, had decided to make Ghana its hub to implement its strategy for sub-Saharan Africa, the country could work further to make the economy the hub for businesses that wanted to reach the rest of Africa.
“Ghana has demonstrated a tremendous level of maturity with regard to transitions. This augurs well for Ghana and the level of foreign direct investments (FDIs) coming in. This FDI inflow is an opportunity to attract people like us (Republic Bank of Trinidad and Tobago) who came in from the diaspora and brought in money to Ghana,” Mr Le Hunte said shortly after HFC Bank signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with MTN Mobile Money Ltd, a subsidiary of MTN Ghana, for the bank to offer mobile money service.
Investment hub
He said there was room for Ghana to develop hubs for institutions that wanted to play within sub-Saharan Africa, many of which currently operated from South Africa.
“We, Republic Bank, for example, have chosen Ghana as our hub in building our sub-Saharan Africa strategy. We chose Ghana because of the peace that we have seen and the level of education and literacy, as well as the rule of law. I sure know that with this peaceful transition and what has been happening around us, a lot of what we saw are what others will be seeing. That’s an opportunity,” Mr Le Hunte stated.
Mobile Money Service
The MD of HFC Bank said contrary to views that mobile money would compete with banks, the bank saw it as an opportunity for growth and to serve their customers better.
“HFC Bank also has a significant geographical reach and remains a preferred financial service provider for both the banked and unbanked. We will, therefore, leverage on MTN Mobile Money to bring financial services to the doorsteps of the unbanked,” he said.
With the MoU, HFC Bank has fused its technology infrastructure with that of MTN Mobile Money which will enable the bank to bring basic banking services and payment transactions to the ‘fingertips’ of customers.
The service, which will be demand-driven, will enable customers of the bank who sign on to the service to conduct transactions, including moving funds across their accounts at HFC Bank and their mobile wallets, as well as the ability to cash out of their wallets using automated teller machines of the bank.
Growing service
The General Manager of MTN Mobile Money Ltd, Mr Eli Hini, said the mobile money service, which was written off at the initial stages, had performed very well to the surprise of the market.
As of the end of September this year, the value of mobile money transactions reached GH¢51.43 billion. The balances of mobile money held by the partner banks, otherwise known as float, averaged GH¢845 million. This is indicative of the deepening mobile money service, which is now being offered by four mobile network operators.
Mr Hini said MTN considered the partnership beyond the basic services to the delivery of more innovative services to be added on.
“We’ve come a long way from where we started. We never envisaged this explosion. We look beyond where we are now and want to challenge banks such as HFC Bank to be part of the revolution,” Mr Hini stated.
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