Mobile Money Interoperability transactions rise 400 percent in six months

The volume of Mobile Money Interoperability (MMI) transactions jumped over 444 percent in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year.

According to the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) Half Year Performance report, MMI transactions from January to June stood at 13.8 million compared to 2.5 million recorded in the same period last year.

The huge jump in the MMI volume could be attributed to increased awareness that funds can now be transferred across wallets of different telecommunications networks.

This follows series of campaigns that GhIPSS together with its partner institutions have been running.

“The flexibility that MMI has introduced into the Ghanaian payment system has made movement of funds very easy and this has been extremely crucial in the face of the coronavirus pandemic,” Mr Archie Hesse, the Chief Executive of GhIPSS, said.

MMI is one of the biggest financial sector breakthroughs that increased mobile money transactions in Ghana.

Since its introduction, many organisations have set their systems to accept mobile money payments, since their customers can pay them regardless of the network they subscribe to.

Although an overwhelming majority of MMI transactions involves funds transfers from one mobile money wallet to another, the Half Year Performance report also indicate the use of the MMI platform to transfer money from bank accounts to mobile money wallet and vice versa.

The volume of transfers from bank account to wallets stood in excess of 2.1 million transactions while transfers made from mobile money wallet to bank accounts was almost 380,000 transactions.

Mr Hesse said the continuous growth in the volume of electronic payment transactions demonstrates increasing public appreciation of its benefits over cash transactions.

He said GhIPSS, together with its partners, would continue the public education to encourage more patronage of the payment channels.

He said key players such as FinTechs would be engaged to expose them to the many opportunities that MMI presents in the electronic payment space.

MMI and the GhIPSS Instant Pay (GIP) are two electronic payment channels that experts say could significantly deepen financial inclusion in Ghana.

Both products continue to record very high growth rates. While MMI saw a growth of over 444 percent in volume, GIP saw close to 600 percent growth in volume in the first half of this year.