More than 65,000 merchants have enrolled on the electronic payment platform through the efforts of the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GhIPSS), a subsidiary of the Bank of Ghana, and its partner institutions.

GhQR was launched in March last year and about 24,700 merchants were enrolled by the end of the year. But the number of merchants has shot up by almost 165 per cent between January and June 2021.

The growth in the number of merchants is a result of increased collaboration between GhIPSS, financial institutions, Electronic Money Issuers, and FinTechs.

Although GhIPSS provides the GhQR platform, it is the partner institutions that enroll the merchants as it is with almost all the services that GhIPSS offer.

Speaking in an interview, Chief Executive of GhIPSS, Archie Hesse commended the partner institutions for the efforts in enrolling merchants onto the GhQR platform.

He urged the other institutions which are yet to go live to complete their processes and join the league of players offering the service.

The GhIPSS CEO said some programmes had been lined up to drive awareness and patronage for the payment service at key shopping centres.

Mr Hesse touted the benefits of GhQR and urged enterprises to approach their banks, FinTechs and Electronic Money Issuers to set them up.

"If you have a shop and you are not offering GhQR, you are making yourself less competitive as customers will prefer to go to outlets where they have a variety of payment options," Mr Hesse said.

Mr Hesse urged shop owners to consider offering more electronic payment options to limit the amount of cash they keep at their outlets.

He also said with the fear of the third wave of Covid-19, shop owners needed to offer safer payment options to their customers such as GhQR and other non-contact forms of payments.

GhQR is considered a game-changer in the cash-lite agenda, as it is easier to set up, less expensive to manage and currently payment via the platform has no charges to the customer.

GhQR is an electronic payment channel that enables customers to scan displayed QR codes with their smart phones and pay, or dial displayed USSD codes with their phones to make payment.

Ghana's QR code for payment is universal which means that any customer whose bank or payment service provider offers the service can use it wherever it is displayed.