This follows the increased number of agents offering e-zwich services and the rolling out of e-zwich compliant ATMs.

  Transactions via e-zwich have gone up significantly following the adoption of the payment system by government for its various initiatives.

   The move has also saved the state lots of money, as it has blocked a lot of leakages and stopped the diversion of funds meant for intended beneficiaries.

  Speaking in an interview, the Chief Executive Officer of GhIPSS, Archie Hesse said there was a lot of convenience in accessing e-zwich services.

  He said the addition of the agents have not only enhanced service delivery but has also created jobs and wealth opportunities for the agents offering the service.

  Mr Hesse said GhIPSS would continue to explore new ways of making the biometric smart card very relevant to the economic aspirations of the country as well as bring value to its users.

  He said efforts to adopt e-zwich as payment for national service and other government programmes initially lagged as it was suspected that officials who benefitted from the rot were less interested in its rollout.

 But following its adoption, significant successes have been chalked out resulting in the growth in the number of users.

 Mr Hesse said in response to the growth in e-zwich users, the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems ltd (GhIPSS) had been rolling out more outlets where the public could access e-zwich devices.

  A number of enterprises have been trained and now provide the service at their outlets, while banks are converting their ATMs with fingerprint readers in order to accept the biometric cards.

  “These moves by GhIPSS and the banks have resolved previous challenges where card users had to visit only bank branches for the service,” Mr Hesse added.