Mobile Money Overtakes Cheques as Main Non-Retail Payment with GHC981.6m

The payment system landscape has witnessed significant changes on account of the growing role of financial technology firms.

This study is attributed to the government and the Bank of Ghana’s decision to promote digital payment as an alternative to cash. This study revealed that seventy-one (71) fin- techs provide both front and back end services to the banking sector.

Also, developments during the previous years were legal and regulatory reforms, airtime use for payments of insurance premium, agent registry, mobile money interoperability, migration of magnetic strip, cards to EMV standard support for national identification authority

The primary aim of the survey is to develop the retail credit market, expand financial inclusion and increase access to credit. The survey includes the study of the retail market and developments for monitoring the credit market.

The value of the retail payment (excluding cash) increased by 43.18 percent to GHC381.43 billion in 2017 from GHC266.39 billion in 2016. the growth in the amount of retail payment instrument was on account of increase in the value of mobile money services (98.50 percent), and e- zwich (45.334 percent).

This clearly signifies that mobile money has overtaken cheques cheques as the main non-cash retail payment with 981.6 million volume of transactions, followed by debit card(60.4 million), e-zwich(8.4 million), cheques(7.3 million) and direct credit transfer (6.1 million) in 2017.

Source: Kasapafmonline