Ghanaian Businesses Asked To Move Away From Doing Face-to-face Transactions

The Chief Executive of the Margins Group, Identity Security and Associated Transactions company, has admonished Ghanaian businesses to adopt modern methods of transacting business. Mr Moses K. Baiden says the reliance on the traditional face-to-face approach to doing business is not very progressive. Any notions that the security of a person’s money is guaranteed in face-to-face business transactions are false and must be discarded, he said. Mr. Baiden was speaking to JOYBUSINESS after the Danish Minister for Trade and Development Cooperation, Mogens Jensen, paid a working visit to the company. “This person-to-person kind of business is what brings the inefficiency and sometimes brings corruption and so on,” he added. Mr Baiden explained that “If I can get government service without having to talk anybody it means you don’t have to bribe anybody so the people who are going to benefit from this leap in technology are the citizens – both in the public services and the commercial and social services.” Margins has been receiving direct and indirect support from the Danish Government since 1999.

Under the then Private Sector Development Project, Danida assisted with the start-up of the company by contributing additional funds to top up the equity investment of Danish and Ghanaian partners in a start-up company known as Margins ID Group. Since then, various types of financing and grants have been made available at various stages of the growth of the Group and its subsidiary, by the Danish Government and its agencies. The company says “recently, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has approved a Mixed Credit of $3.5 million to the Margins ID Group to fully complete its certified factory to produce secure certified cards, that meet all international quality bench marks.” Mr. Jensen toured Margins ID Group’s ultra-modern card production facility (ICPS) which has been chosen as one of the successful flagship companies, under the various Danish assisted private sector initiatives.