Patronage in the use of E-zwich cards continues to soar steadily after close to 500 percent growth was recorded in some of the services over the first six months of the year. Data from the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) across various E-zwich transactions, indicates that while patronage increased for most services by over 50 percent on the average between January and March this year, the usage shot up by huge margins between March and June.

According to the figures, the value of sales transactions involving E-zwich went up from over four hundred thousand Ghana cedis in January to over eight hundred thousand Ghana cedis in March, and rose significantly to four and a half million Ghana cedis by June.

The increase in value of transactions over the six months also corresponds to the volume which has also moved from over seven hundred in January to more than one thousand five hundred in March and further up to over seven thousand and two hundred transactions by June.

Similar trends were recorded for cash deposits and withdrawals on E-zwich as well as card to card transfers over the six months period.

Another major use of the E-zwich which is for the payment of salaries and other forms of emolument known as the Payment Distribution System (PDS), equally moved from 1.1 million Ghana cedis in January to almost 2.3 million Ghana cedis and experienced a jump to almost 14 million Ghana cedis by June.

Commenting on the patronage for E-zwich, the Chief Executive Archie Hesse noted that the use of E-zwich has consistently experienced a steady growth. He said the number of companies using the electronic payment systems for bulk payments was increasing while individuals were doing a lot of internal funds transfers with E-zwich.