Mobile money boosts financial sector, GH¢3.8 billion transacted since inception

A total of GH¢3.8 billion has been saved in, and transferred through the MTN Mobile Money service since its introduction in the country.

This amount is spread among the 19 partner banks of the service, MTN Mobile Money Executive, Mr Godwin Tamakloe, told journalists during an interaction last week.

He said the service has also provided a source of employment and new revenue streams for MTN Mobile Money agents, and has also improved accountability and transparency in the disbursement of monies to beneficiaries under social intervention programmes.

However, he said, there were still concerns about the incidence of mobile money fraud in the country despite rigorous efforts to stem the tide.

“Since the beginning of the year, the police have arrested about 13 people for mobile money-related fraud,” he stated.

He said there had been challenges because of the deceptive tendencies of the fraudsters who register with a particular address but reside at a different location, sometimes in different regions.

Additionally, he said sometimes although numbers used for mobile money fraud may have MTN codes, they may be ported and this tends to cause delays in blocking numbers used for such activities.

Mr Tamakloe said, notwithstanding these challenges there had been significant gains in the fight against the scammers. He indicated the average number of such fraudulent numbers blocks per month had dropped from about 900 last year to about 380 this year.

Additionally, he explained that there was significant increase in number of reported cases of failed mobile money attempts signaling that people are becoming more cautious of the activities of mobile money fraudsters.

He said MTN would continue to work to expose such fraudsters and disclosed that MTN is in discussions with the police to publish the names of such fraudsters. “Our management has written to the head of the police in that direction; we are still appealing to the police,” he stated.