In his address at the launch, Mr. Romeo Bugyei, Chief Executive Officer of ITC attributed their survival as an indigenous Fintech company to collaboration.
“We did not seek to do everything on our own, but rather, we focused on our strengths and relied on the strengths of our partners... Let’s continue to work together keeping our eyes on the bigger picture, Ghana, providing opportunities for the younger generation. Let’s believe in this country and work to leave a better technology industry for the future generation,” he said.
Founded in March 2001, ITC, a wholly-owned Ghanaian company has grown and is now at the forefront of innovation in the Fintech industry in Ghana and other parts of the African continent including Kenya, Liberia and Zambia. Today, ITC’s software solutions are powering the movement of funds between institutions and their stakeholders within the financial, education, government/public and communication sectors.
ITC 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. More recently, it acquired the highest license within the Payment Services Provider (PSP) category, following the passage of the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019 (Act 987). The company is also part of the Stanford Seed Business Transformational Network of companies.
In both 2018 and 2019, the company was ranked the number one Fintech in the Ghana Club 100 awards.
The anniversary, which is being marked under the theme: “20 Years of Innovation”, seeks to celebrate the significant contributions the company has made towards the drive for financial inclusion in Ghana and beyond over the past two decades.
Mr. Bugyei indicated that the company has experienced exponential growth over the past six years due to infrastructural improvement in the country.
“Power, internet, centralized database systems, reliable identification systems and recently the Ghana Card are vital soft infrastructure for innovation,” he said.
He commended the Central Bank for bringing confidence into the Fintech space and having an open door policy in their dealings with them.
In a goodwill message to ITC, Dr. Maxwell Opoku-Afari, first Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) commended the company for its commitment to the norms of the financial services industry over the years, and for demonstrating fidelity to the digital transformation agenda of the Ghanaian economy.
“ITCs contribution to the conceptualization, designing and implementation of the flagship Ghana.Gov platform which is at the core of the digital economy project is laudable,” he added.
A look into the future
Mr. Bugyei expressed the firm belief that research and the innovative application of research, will create new technologies to solve the problems of Ghana.
He indicated that ITC is investing heavily in computer vision, block-chain technology, natural language processing and artificial intelligence in general.
“We believe in creating the future, not waiting for it. We also believe that as a country we must not only be consumers of technology but also producers of it. This can only be achieved through intentional investment in research by the private sector,” he said.
“We cannot scale in technology if the government becomes the sole entity putting money into research. Let’s challenge ourselves as businesses in this country to spend money in research, not just the application of technology but also its development,” he added.