Bawumia's mobile money interoperability bear fruits

The Brong-Ahafo Regional Secretary of the New Patriotic Party, Mr Kofi Ofosu Boateng has said the "tremendous work done”, by the presidency has bore fruits barely five months into the introduction of the mobile money interoperability service in the country.

He said the government’s commitment to supporting start-ups through policies and programmes designed to ensure the success of the mobile money interoperability system has given rise to the success of the project.

His comments follow latest data from the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GhIPSS), which indicates that over 1.1 million transactions was recorded at the end of September with the total value of cross-network transactions amounting to about 99.3 million Ghana cedis.

According to GhlPSS in its first month of operations, only 96 thousand transactions took place but that figure has risen steadily over the period to over 312,000 transactions in the month of September alone.

The Chief Executive of GhIPSS, Archie Hesse said the continuous growth in the volume of transactions clearly shows that the mobile money interoperability came to fulfil a need.

The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia last year issued a challenge to the Bank of Ghana, the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS), the Telcos and financial institutions to ensure that mobile money platforms were interoperable to make banking services more accessible to the large unbanked population, estimated to be about 70 per cent.

Launching the mobile money interoperability system in may this year, Dr Bawumia said, mobile money payment interoperability system is expected to largely eliminate the difficulties associated with traditional banking services, such as the difficulty in opening bank accounts, the high costs associated with maintaining a bank account relative to customers’ income levels, the need to have basic literacy, administration and record keeping abilities among others.

Speaking to some media men in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region, Mr Kofi Ofosu Boateng praised Dr Bawumia whose efforts had resulted in a platform that provides “a financial transactions engine that is versatile, efficient, robust, and enhances patronage."

He said the fulfilment of this singular achievement re-echoed President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s belief that with the right conditions and leadership, "there is nothing we cannot achieve as a people."

It is informative to stress that as part of the commitment and determination by government to protect the public purse, the mobile money interoperability project was executed with a just Ghc4 million instead of the earmarked GHc 1.2 billion by the previous NDC government, he said.