Elegbede Abiodun
Connecting digital wallets to a national identity card makes financial services more accessible for Ghanaians now.
Ghanaians can now use their National identification cards to make payments after the country’s National Identification Authority (NIA) added a digital wallet to the Ghana Card, expanding the card’s use beyond identification and travel documents.
The new feature, which was first announced in September 2025, now allows Ghana Card holders to withdraw cash from Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), make payments in stores and online, carry out international transactions in more than 200 countries, and access services such as insurance and emergency assistance.
The Ghana Card is already widely used across the country for services including SIM registration and passport applications.
According to TechCabal, current holders of the card can activate the wallet through the MyCitizens App or by dialling *402#.
The NIA said the payments feature is part of efforts to improve financial inclusion in Ghana, where credit card usage remains low.
Credit card penetration in the country was forecast at 0.6 per cent in 2024 and is expected to continue declining between 2024 and 2029.
By linking a digital wallet to a nationally issued identity card, Ghana hopes to make financial services more accessible and reduce barriers for people who may not have access to traditional banking products.
According to the NIA, the Ghana Card was designed from the beginning to serve three purposes: identity, passport and payments.
While the e-ID function has already been in use for years, the e-passport feature was activated in 2022. The NIA said this allowed the card to be accepted as a passport in 197 countries worldwide.
The newly launched wallet now completes the third part of that plan.
The NIA also said the e-wallet system is not expected to be controlled by a single bank or financial institution. Instead, it was designed as a platform that can integrate multiple banks into one system.
Beyond regular payments, the NIA has also explored using the Ghana Card for other economic activities, including gold trading.
When the wallet project was first announced, the authority said it was interested in partnering with the Ghana Gold Board to use the Ghana Card for gold trading and tokenised transactions.
However, it remains unclear whether that part of the project has been activated, as the latest announcement focused only on the payment feature.
If widely adopted, the Ghana Card wallet could reduce Ghana’s dependence on global card providers such as Visa and Mastercard, while also offering a model for identity-based payments systems across Africa.
