IT Consortium, a FinTech company in Ghana, has launched RemitPlus, a product designed to give Ghanaians access to value added financial services such as pensions contributions whenever they receive international remittances.
In a statement as issued by the company, it stated other value offerings that come with RemitPlus to include an embedded life cover of GH¢5,000 for contributors and access to loan facilities from partner financial institutions using pension contributions as collateral.
Speaking at the launch, the Managing Director of IT Consortium, Mr Romeo Bugyei, expressed delight about the potential RemitPlus offered to financially excluded citizens, particularly women.
“Data available to us show that 70 per cent of the formal workforce in Ghana are not active pension contributors, while data from our other products show that 70 per cent of people acquiring informal pensions are men, which means our women are being left behind.”
“We believe in the product and the value it gives to our citizens. It has the potential to lift more women out of poverty through the avenue to set money aside for pensions, and that is something that really excites us,” he said.
He noted that IT Consortium had been in the space of value-added services for a long time and the company was working to ensure that pensions would not be the only added service.
“We are speaking with our banking partners to offer direct investments, hospital payments, school fees payment, among others, using this same platform,” he revealed.
RemitPlus
IT Consortium developed RemitPlus through a grant known as the Remittance Grant Facility Fund, awarded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Ministry of Finance.
They worked in partnership with SendWave, Axis Pensions Trust and Access Bank PLC, with KPMG as fund managers.
Access Bank PLC representative, Mr Stephen Abban, said he was convinced that the partnership with IT Consortium was a major step towards giving financially excluded people access to financial services. He pledged the bank’s strong commitment to ensure the success of RemitPlus.
For his part, the Group CEO of Axis Pensions Trust Ltd, Mr Afriyie Oware, expressed excitement about collaborations between financial institutions and FinTechs and the opportunities they offered to lower costs and design innovative products that were more financially inclusive.
With Ghana being the second largest receiver of remittance in sub-Saharan Africa, Zakaria Umar who spoke on behalf of the fund manager, KMPG, indicated that sending remittances without hindrances was important for providing better quality food, health care and business support particularly for the rural folk.
IT Consortium is one of Africa’s leading financial services technology solutions providers and was the first Ghanaian FinTech to obtain the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification in addition to its Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) certification.
Recently, it acquired the highest licence within the Payment Services Provider (PSP) category, following the passage of the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019 (Act 987).
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