Mobile Money transaction up by 43.2%

By Elorm Desewu

Figures emanating from the Ministry of Finance show that mobile money transaction at the end of 2018 has increased by 43.2 percent.

According to the 2018 budget performance report total mobile money transaction was valued at GH¢223.21 billion at the end of 2018, an increase of 43.2% over that of 2017 figure of GH¢155.84 billion.

Mobile money users increased their patronage from an average of 45 transactions a year in 2014 to 111 transaction a year in 2018. 

The total mobile telephone subscription as of December 2018 was 40.9 million, representing 139% telephone density. , MTN was the largest cellular phone service provider with over 20.1 million subscribers at the end of December 2018, followed by AirtelTigo, which had over 10.3million cellular subscriptions as of December 2018.  Vodafone and Glo followed with 9.8 million and 0.7 million, respectively.

 MTN Mobile Money is a fast, simple, convenient, secure and affordable way of transferring money, making payments and doing other transactions using a mobile phone.

Since the introduction of mobile money interoperability, the average transaction per month for last year was pegged at about 280, 000 transactions. This indicates that there was a difference of over 200 per cent.

According to the report, in the first month of introduction, less than 100,000 transactions took place but it rose steadily to over 400,000 transactions in the month of December 2018 alone.

Mobile Money (MM) is gradually becoming a major means of payment for the unbanked and the underserved in Ghana. The rapid growth in MM usage in Ghana is partly on account of increasing penetration and application of mobile phones particularly in the rural areas.

The widespread proliferation of MM among the unbanked and underserved is premised on recent advances in handset functionality, chip and mobile network technologies, and upgrade in Point-Of-Sale (POS) infrastructure.

These developments have improved the environment for MM solutions, and brought together different industry players, such as banks and mobile money operators to establish MM businesses.

The use of MM services as a means of payment brings a number of benefits to the user including convenience, speed, flexibility and affordability (GSMA, 2013).