E-cedi will boost the capital market –Zeepay MD

Zeepay Managing Director Mr. Andrews Takyi-Appiah said the introduction of e-cedi by the Bank of Ghana will help further boost the country’s capital market.

He said the e-cedi would introduce digital transactions to the country’s capital market and automatically turn the market into a 24-hour platform where investors can trade at any time of the day.

This, he said, would make the capital market more fluid and also spur a lot of innovation in the market.

The BoG recently announced that it is at an advanced stage of introducing a digital currency which will be known as e-cedi.

Speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic on the sidelines of the company’s 2020 annual general meeting, Mr. Takyi-Appiah said that “the introduction of cedi is a good thing because they don’t do than to introduce a digital element of the existing currency, which will be very good for the economy.

Read : Zeepay, others to serve 20 African countries through money transfers

2020 performances

Commenting on the company’s performance in 2020, he said 2020 was a good year, despite some challenges in the first quarter due to Brexit affecting its European operations and the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said the company had increased its business by 146% compound annual growth rate amid forecasts of a drop in remittances to Africa.

Its sales volume also increased to $ 400 million for the period, with transactions also rising to $ 2.4 million.

The company also closed 2020 with an after-tax profit of GHȼ 4.2 million and a total turnover of over GHȼ 16 million.

“Although remittances have declined globally, performance in our critical markets has remained strong as we have utilized synergies and the use of multiple strategies with partners; such as the free online service with MoneyGram International for Ghana and Small World Money Transfer for Uganda.

“We continued to focus on international expansion and were successful in serving eight active corridors with 30-day activity at the height of the pandemic,” he said.

Impact of interoperability

The CEO pointed out that the mobile money interoperability platform that was introduced by the government has had a positive impact on their business.

He said that Zeepay was one of the net contributors to the interoperability platform.

“We are third in the volume market through Ghana’s Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GHIPSS). In August 2021 alone, in terms of the number of transactions, we pushed around 700,000 transactions just for mobile money.

“So this has helped our business a lot and created a leap forward for our growth and we think that by the end of the year we will also see some big gains on this side,” he said.

He said the introduction of the central bank’s remittance guidelines and guidelines had also helped fintecs expand their business.

Outlook 2021

Mr Takyi said the company’s outlook for 2021 is very exciting as it has already processed more than 3.2 million transactions in the first nine months of the year.

He said the company also brought in new shareholders who invested in the company.

“I am even more excited that we are ending the year on a strong note that will allow us to integrate into our global operations,” he noted.

In terms of market expansion, he said the company has some exciting markets to announce shortly, subject to regulatory approval.