According to the President of the Chartered Institute of Bankers – Ghana, Rev. Patricia Sappor, banks in Ghana have been embracing the new normal in their operations in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. She said banks are taking steps to scale up digitization in their operations to make it easier for customers to transact banking businesses without walking to the banking halls.

Speaking to some newsmen in Accra, she said banks have positioned themselves for an unexpected change. “In the past 24 years, most of the banks had positioned themselves in the digital space. Customers were very aggressive, how to navigate their way through accessing the services of the banks on the digital platforms” she explained.

A Banking Consultant Nana Otuo Acheampong, said the coronavirus pandemic has changed the face of banking across the globe and that banks are now investing heavily in digitization following the pandemic.

According to him, banking is a security-conscious industry, which takes the confidentiality of customers so seriously. He revealed that the banks are investing a lot in encryption and verification of identities in order to combat the unforeseen.

Mr. Acheampong stated that banking will not be the same as it was before December 2019 addIng that, the process of digitization started some years ago, but the pace was so urgent until this pandemic.

“Now the Artificial Intelligence which is assisting the digitization in banking has been fast-tracked and now a lot of things are happening remotely instead of physically being in the banking hall or the banking premises,” he said.

He added: “The changes in the banking sector started years ago, it might have been slow but the pandemic has effectively turbo-charged the growth of the internet and it’s being used more, now the returns that are made to the regulator has gradually moved away from paper-based to electronic-based. There are hundreds of reports that have been digitized. Changes have been ongoing but the pandemic has catapulted us into the future.”