The Money Transfer Business

The Money Transfer (MT) companies are among the most visible businesses in Ghana currently. Countless adverts in both the print and especially electronic media extol to potential customers the virtues of remitting money through a particular MT business. The importance of the MT sector to Ghana's economy is reflected in the $400 million (conservative estimates) it pumps into the national economy per annum. Remittance to Africa through the Money Transfer Organisations is pegged around $20 billion annually and is soaring.

Regardless of the fact that MTs funnel perennially scarce foreign exchange into national economies in Africa, industry watchers in Ghana are expressing grave reservations. The complaints centre on the seemingly lax regulatory framework for such MTs and the subtle crowding out of Ghanaian owned MTs.

Expert opinion sought by ADM indicates that without a well functioning monitoring regime for MTs in Ghana such businesses could be used for criminal activities such as money laundering and trafficking. Money laundering syndicates are increasingly exhibiting a preference for firms offering bank-like services such as bureaux de change, cheque cashing agencies and MT services. In some cases terrorist organisations use MTs as conduits to transfer huge sums of money to their partners in crime. Al-Barakat, a Somali Money Transfer Company was shutdown because it aided in the funding of illegal operations including the September 11, 2001 bombing. There is also the prospect that some unscrupulous MT may bolt with its customers' remittances Pyram style.

Ghanaian owned MTs in the UK are fuming that some foreign owned MTs are destroying their businesses by charging ludicrously low charges for transfers to Ghana. Some of these companies charge between ?1 and ?2. This is hurting Ghanaian owned companies, which charge higher rates and contribute significantly to the Ghanaian economy. Express Funds Money Transfer Company is one such firm. A Ghanaian owned pioneer MT firm in the U.K., it employs 90 people in Ghana and has diversified into agri-business by setting up Morgan Farms Ltd in the Central Region of Ghana.

Most economists believe that if President Kufuor's dream of catalysing the ascendancy of the Ghanaian private sector to prop the Golden Age of Business is to succeed then the Ghanaian entrepreneur must be at the hub of the nation's much awaited economic renaissance. In 1995 and 1996 the Pyram - R5 scam shook Ghana's corporate world, when thousands of people lost their hard-earned investment with the disappearance of the owners of the two companies. The Bank of Ghana (BOG) must take a second insightful look at the MTs if such a fiasco is not to be repeated and Ghanaian businesses destroyed.

Attempts by ADM to get the BOG to give its views on the MT regulatory regime in Ghana proved futile.

Ghanaian banks dealing with the foreign MTs in question were reluctant to talk when contacted by ADM.