Bank of Ghana approves free mobile money transaction, increases daily transaction limit

The Bank of Ghana has agreed with banks and mobile network operators on measures to facilitate more efficient payments and promote digital forms of payments for the next three months in the wake of Covid-19.

The new measures takes effect March 20, 2020.

These are: (i) All mobile money users can send up to GH?100 for free (excluding cash out). This includes sending to a recipient on the same network, or another network via the interoperability platform.

(ii) All mobile phone subscribers are now permitted to use their already existing mobile phone registration details to be on-boarded for Minimum KYC Account.

(iii)The daily transaction limits for mobile money are increased as follows in the attached document:

“The Bank of Ghana is closely monitoring developments as regards the impact of COVID-19 on the domestic economy, and will not hesitate to convene an emergency meeting to deliberate on other measures, if required,” it said in a statement.

Meanwhile, following examples of how central banks across the world are dealing with global economic trends, amidst the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the BoG has cut primary reserve requirement by 2 percentage points to provide more liquidity to banks to support critical sectors of the economy.

Additionally, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has lowered the country’s Monetary Policy Rate by 150 basis points to 14.5 percent.

This follows some significant development in the global financial markets, causing a sharp downturn of global stock prices and a steep rise in emerging markets’ sovereign bond spreads.

“These unfolding developments have further worsened the pre-existing weaknesses in global growth and caused major disruptions to global supply chains with adverse implications for the global economy.”