MORE ON

Absa Bank introduces first-ever QR Code feature for ATMs

Accra, June 07, 2022 – If you are an Absa Bank customer with a penchant for using the bank’s ATM, there’s a new feature on the machine that will make your life simpler and more convenient than before.

For the first time in Ghana, customers can now withdraw money from any of Absa’s ATMs with the luxury of a digital QR code, using their mobile phones. The functionality, which is now operational across ATMs nationwide, reflects Absa’s digital leadership in the banking industry.

Banking has always been a lucrative component of economic transformation and development across nations. With the advancement of digital technology and the dynamic needs of customers, banks are finding new ways of engaging and making transactions easy and convenient for their customers.

The ATM QR Cash feature is embedded in Absa’s mobile banking app; and allows customers to scan a code on the ATM with their phone to follow instructions on withdrawing the cash without the use of the credit/ debit card. The process is seamless and avoids any physical contact with the ATM keys or buttons. It is a clear synergy between mobile technology and the physical ATM machine, elevating the way customers engage with their banks.

Commenting on the new feature, Director of Retail at Absa Bank Ghana, Charles Addo said: “It is a new way of banking that immediately transforms our commitment to our customers. We are at a certain stage in the global dynamic of banking where organisations need to constantly reinvent to remain relevant. Our customers are increasingly coming up with new needs and expectations and our responsibility is to meet them seamlessly. We are excited about this innovation, and we remain committed to devising new and better ways to make the banking experience worthwhile for our customers.”

The ATM QR Cash feature adds to a rich collection of innovative and creative products from the stable of Absa Bank. The bank has been at the forefront of digital banking leadership in Ghana through a plethora of products including Absa Cash Send and Cash Accepting ATMs that allows 24/7 banking on the go.

COMMENT/ANALYSIS

The supply solution to stagflation

By David Malpass //continued from page 1

Real income per capita in 2023 will remain below pre-COVID-19 levels in about 40% of developing economies. For many countries, recession will be hard to avoid. With the supply of natural gas constrained, especially for use in fertilizer and electricity grids in poorer countries, announcements of major production increases worldwide will be essential to restoring non-inflationary growth.

The danger that above-average inflation and below-average growth will persist for several years – a phenomenon not seen since the 1970s – is considerable. Between 2021 and 2024, global growth is projected to slow by 2.7 percentage points – more than twice the deceleration between 1976 and 1979. Subdued growth will likely persist throughout the decade because of weak investment in most of the world. With inflation now running at multi-decade highs in many countries, and supply expected to expand slowly, there is a risk that the rate of price growth will remain higher for longer than currently anticipated.

Moreover, developing economies’ external public debt is at record levels today. Most of it is owed to private creditors, and much of it involves variable interest rates that could spike suddenly. As global financing conditions tighten and currencies depreciate, debt distress – previously confined to lowincome economies – is spreading to middle-income countries.

The removal of monetary accommodation in the United States and other advanced economies, along with the ensuing increase in global borrowing costs, represents another significant headwind for the developing world. In addition, over the next two years, most of the fiscal support provided in 2020 to fight the pandemic will have been unwound, though debt levels will remain elevated. As policy accommodation is removed, it will be important to reduce inequality and seek higher incomes for all by using fiscal and monetary tools that strengthen supply chains, small businesses, and the capital-allocation process.

But current conditions also differ from the 1970s in several important ways. The dollar, extremely weak in the 1970s, is strong. Oil prices quadrupled in 1973-74 and doubled in 197980; today, in inflation-adjusted terms, oil prices are only twothirds their level in 1980. And the balance sheets of major financial institutions are generally strong, whereas they were a risk in the 1970s.

Economies around the world are also more flexible than they were in the 1970s, with fewer structural rigidities involving wages and labor markets, and policymakers are in a better position today to stave off stagflationary headwinds. Monetary-policy frameworks are more credible: central banks in advanced and many developing economies alike operate under clear price-stability mandates. This, together with the fact that existing technology and capital have the capacity to provide massive increases in supply, has helped anchor long-term inflation expectations.

Reducing the risk of stagflation will require targeted measures by policymakers worldwide. In an extraordinary era of overlapping global crises, policymakers everywhere will need to focus their efforts in five key areas.

First, they must limit the harm to people affected by the war in Ukraine. This will require coordinating the crisis response, including delivery of emergency food, medical, and financial aid to war-torn areas, and sharing the burden of housing, supporting, and possibly relocating refugees and internally displaced people.

Second, policymakers must counter the spike in oil and food prices. It is essential to boost the supply of key food and energy commodities. Markets are forward-looking, so even mere announcements of future supply would help reduce prices and inflation expectations. All countries should buttress social safety nets and avoid export and import restrictions that magnify price increases.

Third, there is an urgent need to step up debt-relief efforts. Debt vulnerabilities were acute for lowincome countries even before the pandemic. As debt distress spreads to middle-income countries, the risks to the global economy will grow in the absence of rapid, comprehensive, and sizeable relief.

Fourth, officials must strengthen health preparedness and efforts to contain COVID-19. Expanding immunization efforts in lowincome countries, including COVID-19 vaccinations, must be a high global priority.

Fifth, the transition to lowcarbon energy sources must be accelerated. Reducing dependency on fossil fuels will require more investment in electricity grids, cleaner energy sources, and greater energy efficiency. National policymakers should create climate-smart regulatory frameworks, adjust incentive structures, and strengthen land-use regulations.

Restoring long-term prosperity depends on a resumption of faster growth and a more stable, rulesbased policy environment. There is good reason to expect that, once the war in Ukraine stops, efforts to rebuild the Ukrainian economy and revive global growth – including by the World Bank Group – will be redoubled. In the meantime, policymakers must mitigate the other threats to development around the world: soaring food and energy prices, persistent stagflationary pressure, increasingly perilous debt overhangs, growing inequality and instability, and the myriad risks stemming from climate change.

This commentary has been adapted from the World Bank Group’s June 2022 Global Economic Prospects report.