Vibrant FinTech company in Ghana

Kojo Choi, CEO of PaySwitch, an alternative payment service company based in Ghana, has been put in spotlight as he helped send a Ghanaian athlete
to South Korea to attend PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Kojo donated US$23,000 to Akwasi Frimpong who was the only African skeleton racer who attended the Winter Olympics.
In an interview with The Korea Post, CEO Kojo said, “There are multiple opportunities that can be explored by Korea especially in the areas of technology. Ghana has good but relatively cheaper labor force; however, it lacks most of the advanced technologies that can transform local business efforts into world class.” A summary of the interview follows:

CEO Kojo Choi of PaySwitch

Question: First of all, would you like to introduce your business in Ghana?

Answer: PaySwitch Company Limited is a Ghanaian company providing alternative payment processing services to banks and non-banking financial institutions. We have a state-of-the-art switch and data center to offer both issuing and acquiring services. Our solution is internationally certified and also hosts about 168 banks out of which 70 are national banks across the globe. We are certified to issue Visa and Master cards as well.

Our services include:

  • Switching (issuing and acquiring)
  • Card Hosting and Management
  • Fraud Prevention and Detection
  • Payment Aggregation (Web Acquiring)

As a special feature, I will like to mention our proprietary card,TELA.

TELA is a local Chip+Pin card designed to offer commercial banks like comprehensive payment card products and solutions. TELA is offered on a chip platform that meets all the EMV CPA standard by EMV Co, hence supported by all members of the organization: VISA, MasterCard, DISCOVER, UnionPay, American Express, JCB. It is highly flexible and seeks to provide issuers and their customers as well as acquirers with a reliable solution for migration to EMV chip technology.

Some of the features include:

  • Issued as debit and prepaid card
  • Cards are secured with DDA/CDA
  • Unique value-added services including loyalty and rewards for specific merchants
  • All transactions are processed and settled in local currency and in-country
  • NFC Enabled [soon to be introduced]

TELA is currently acquired in over 30 countries across Africa. Further works are on-going to have it acquired in other parts of the globe (especially Europe and Middle East).

Q: Do you have plans to develop business in other countries?

A: Yes. Our plan is to develop business across sub-Sahara Africa with immediate focus on West Africa.

Q: What is prospect of economic cooperation between two countries (Korea and Ghana)?

A: There are multiple opportunities that can be explored by Korea especially in the areas of technology. Ghana has good but relatively cheaper labor force; however, it lacks most of the advanced technologies that can transform local business efforts into world class

Q: Please elaborate impressions and experiences about Ghana.

A:

  1. Ghana has a stable political environment that generates a long term business investment
  2. Ghana has skilled labor that can be deployed at affordable cost
  3. There is a huge gap in technological infrastructure that is required to boost efficiency in all aspects of the economy
  4. There is growth in the area of telecommunication and banking. The low level of major road and housing infrastructure creates a big opportunity for civil engineering projects.

Q: What suggestions would you like to make to Ghanaian authorities for developing business between Korea and Ghana?

A:

  1. Ghana can learn and benefit from the knowledge Koreans have been able to build over the years.
  2. Ghana has a youthful population that can lend skillful hands to investors from Korea

    Q: What are characteristics of your company which distinguish from other competitors?

    A: What we offer.

    When comparing our capabilities and proposed solutions to those of competitors, the benefits of choosing PaySwitch are:

  1. One-stop shop [no one offers this in Ghana]
  • Switch Services
  • Card Hosting
  • Fraud Management (Prevention and Detection).
  • Payment Aggregation
  • Consulting Services
  1. Powered by one of the top two highly rated switch infrastructures in the world.
  • Technology has in-built digital banking component.
  • Guaranteed 99.9% uptime.
  • Certification (ISO 27001; ISO 22301)
  • Technology hosts 168 financial institutions and 70 national banks across the globe
  • The technology supports 180 currencies across the globe
  1. Financial gain to clients
  • We offer a complete solution at the most reasonable cost.
  • Currently, our offer saves our clients at least 45% - 60%
  • Our local presence in Ghana warrants elimination of international tax liabilities on our services to the client
  • We save cost on project management with respect to reach to clients and a
  1. Operational efficiency
  • We offer our clients the best and fastest response to calls for support
  • Highly trained professionals to support security and technology
  • We operate a 24 / 7 call center for both operational and technical support.

Q: Please add whatever other details that you might consider to be important.

A: As a business, we are looking forward to expanding our reach to other parts of Africa and to be a dominant player, transforming the economic fortunes of Africa. We have set in place structures to take off with subsidiaries in related sectors of the African economy

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