By on February 20, 2017
Mobile Money is a fast, reliable, cheap and convenient way of transferring money, making payments and doing other transactions. Currently four Mobile Network Operators offer Mobile Money services in the country. These are MTN, Airtel, Tigo and Vodafone. The service is a convenient way to pay bills online or through your phone, recharge credit easily, transfer money etc.
The Bank of Ghana released Payment System Statistics in Ghana from 2012 to 2016. Mobile Money happens to be one of the payment systems that were featured. The figures are staggering. Over the 4-year period, the Total Volume of Transactions grew by 106.66%. The Total Value of Transactions also increased by 121.5% from 2012 to 2016. The other indicators which include Active Mobile Money customers and Agents grew astronomically over the period under review.
Mobile Money is gradually becoming the number one preferred payment system for goods and services and remittances in Ghana. This offers new opportunities for entrepreneurs and businesses to consider integrating mobile money payment as an option for customers so that they do not cut out a whole segment of the population. We have seen a couple of collaborations between banks and Telcos. One of these is Tbill4All - which enable citizens to buy treasury bills with mobile money. This is a great initiative to encourage citizens to develop investment habits.
On the other hand, citizens also need to watchout for mobile money fraudsters who send messages to some users requiring them to pay a certain amount to receive I prize money that will be sent to their mobile wallets. that send messages to people that they have won some amount of cash in their mobile wallet and need to pay some money to the other party before redeeming their prize.
