Delali Dzidzienyo(middle),Head of Marketing and Corporate Affairs, and the team from First National Bank with a visa Platinum and Gold debit card

First National Bank launches cash rewards programme

Daily Graphic Business News Jun - 18 - 2018 , 13:07

First National Bank Ghana Limited launched a cash rewards programme to recognise customers for everyday non-cash transactions.

Card holders who use their visa debit cards to make purchases (transaction on POS machines and online card purchases) will earn back a percentage of the transaction amount.

“We fully support government’s agenda to turn the Ghanaian economy into a cashless economy where people transact easily with electronic cards,” Hannah Annobil-Acquah, the Head of Retail Banking at First National Bank Ghana, said in a release issued in Accra at the weekend.

It added: “We’ve done this in several other markets in Africa – from South Africa to Zambia and Namiba. The drive to a cashless agenda comes more easily than any other bank in the country because it is in our DNA and at the heart of our strategy to become the most helpful and innovative bank in Ghana.”

What it brings

With the new cash rewards, the release said the bank would pay back a percentage of whatever amount a customer purchased using their “visa debit card (swipes or spends at a POS machine or online purchases) each month. ATM transactions are not eligible for the cash rewards programme.”

“Imagine you go to a home appliances shop to buy a fridge or a TV set and use your First National Bank Visa debit card to pay GH¢5,000 for the entire transaction. We, at First National Bank, will pay back to you a percentage of the transaction value into your savings pocket as a reward for using your card and by so doing encouraging others to keep using their Visa debit cards,” says Mrs Annobil-Acquah.

“This is not a promotion. It’s a lifestyle we want to encourage as part of our strategy to push the government’s cashless agenda. It doesn’t matter where you swipe, the machine you swipe on or where in the world you swipe. As long you have a gold or platinum visa debit card issued by First National Bank Ghana, you will get your cash reward.”

What’s more

The release said other transactions that were eligible for the cash reward programme included online purchases, POS payments in restaurants and supermarkets anywhere in the world and transactions on electronic payment platforms such as ExpressPay.

It said the Bank of Ghana (BoG) Payment Systems Oversight Annual Report had indicated that about 9.4 million cards were issued by banks in Ghana in 2016 alone. The total volume of card transactions in 2016 was about 54.3 million, amounting to GH¢14.2 billion in total value.

It said the bank was hoping to use the reward programme to increase both the number of electronic payment cards and the volume of card transactions.