Prudential Bank Ltd (PBL) in collaboration with UnionPay International (UPI) has organised a day's seminar focused on international trade payment solutions for the Ghana Union of Traders’ Association (GUTA).

The seminar sought to highlight the advantages of the Bank’s UnionPay cards and other value-added products to address the challenges traders faced when paying for good and services internationally especially in China and Southeast Asia.

The event, held in Accra, was attended by more than 50 key members of GUTA.

The seminar featured a diverse group of GUTA executive and members, along with the regional representative of UnionPay for Africa and Senior Management from Prudential Bank.

In his opening remarks, the Executive Head of Retail and Commercial Banking at PBL, Ebow Quayson, expressed gratitude to the attendees for their adoption and ongoing use of the cards.

He said the bank recognised the difficulties Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) encountered when making payments to suppliers in Asia, reason why PBL was offering UPI cards in debit and pre-paid variants to meet the immediate needs of traders.

He said the collaboration between UnionPay International and PBL was timely and would help address the issues faced by customers engaged in trade worldwide and specifically within the Asian markets.

The President of GUTA, Dr Joseph Obeng, for his part, stressed the challenges traders encountered with suppliers, particularly, due to language barriers. The card in his view would be a good way to bridge that gap.

He commended the bank's initiative to collaborate with GUTA in addressing those issues and advocated the creation of additional products, specifically designed to meet the needs of traders.

The UPI’s Representative for West Africa, Bright Agbottah, took the opportunity to introduce the UnionPay card products and value-added services that complemented the UnionPay card to the attendees.

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“With the growing trade volume between Africa particularly, Ghana and China, this partnership would leverage on UnionPay’s innovative products offerings, the global UnionPay network to complement electronic payment, financial inclusion and cashless payment within Ghana and when GUTA members pay for their goods and services internally.”, he added.

He also outlined UPI's strategy to encourage the use of UnionPay cards among traders, focusing on their convenience and the development of new products such as the Commercial Card with higher transaction limits and collaboration with online marketplaces to facilitate trade and online payments.

The Executive Head, Retail and Commercial Banking,Ebow Quayson, and  the Bank’s Chief Information Officer, Leopold Armah, responded to the questions and assured participants of further discussions with GUTA to customise the UnionPay cards to meet user needs.

They also committed to addressing the suggestions put forward.

The three institutions Prudential bank, Unionpay international and GUTA affirmed their commitment to work together to for their mutual benefit and further strengthen the cash-lite agenda.