MTN wants mobile money transaction limit reviewed

The Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Mr Ebenezer Asante, says the company is currently engaging the Bank of Ghana (BoG) for the upward review of the transaction limits of mobile money services in the country.

He said the last time the Central Bank reviewed the limit was over three years ago and, therefore, found it necessary for a review to promote cashless transactions.

Mr Asante said this in an interview with the Daily Graphic when he took his turn at the “‘Evening with’ series” which was organised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG).

The transaction limit of mobile money services has been cited as one of the challenges that is stifling the growth of the mobile money sector.

The Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) guidelines which was issued by the BoG categorised customers e-money accounts into three groups which defined their maximum daily and monthly transaction limits. 

Depending on which of the three categories a customer is placed in by the service provider, the daily transaction limit ranges from GH¢300 to GH¢5,000, with the monthly maximum transaction also ranging from GH¢3,000 to GH¢50,000.

The guidelines also captured the daily and monthly transaction limits of mobile money merchants as they stipulated an aggregate limit on cash-out and outbound payments of GH¢10,000 per day and GH¢100,000 monthly.

At MTN, for instance, non-wallet holders are not allowed to transfer or make any payments that exceed GH¢200 per day while wallet holders are also not allowed to transfer or make payments that together exceed GH¢1,000 per day. In addition, the balance on one’s wallet is not allowed to exceed GH¢10,000.

Mr Asante said customers had raised concerns about some of these transaction limits and had, therefore, initiated discussions with the regulator to get them reviewed upward.

He said how much and where it would be raised to, however, depended much on the BoG because it was a regulation issue.

Convergence between telcos and banks

Mobile money transactions are consistently growing as the total number of transactions increased from 113 million in 2014 to 266 million in 2015.

The value of transactions has also seen an astronomical jump from GH¢2.4 billion in 2013 to GH¢35 billion in 2015. The figure is likely to be doubled as the half year results for 2016 indicate a total transaction of GH¢30 billion.

Active mobile money customers also increased from 2.5 million to about five million between 2014 and 2015, with active agents increasing from 21,000 to 56,000 within the same period.

The money being held in floats at the banks by the mobile money service providers was also above GH¢700 million by end of June, 2016.

Mr Asante said there would be more collaboration between the telcos and the banks.

He said there would be a convergence between the banking sector and the telecommunication sector, with both of them taking advantage of the other.

Double charges

The National President of the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana, Mr Kojo Mattah, for his part, appealed to MTN to take the lead as the market leader in resolving the issue of double charges which had characterised the mobile money service.

He said he did not understand why one had to be charged for sending money and at the end the one receiving it too would be charged for cashing it out.

Mr Mintah, therefore, called on MTN to come up with a solution that would require only the sender or receiver to pay a charge and not both.