Curb Momo fraud? A piece of advice to TELCOS

The impact of Mobile Money has been felt by many Ghanaians over the past decade. The number of Citizens rolling unto the Mobile Money platform is no doubt on a daily surge as a result of it's convenience, easy way to use and availability. In fact, Mobile Money has really made the world of Money Transfer so colourful.

Nevertheless, it has been established since creation in Akan that "dza ɔyɛ dew biara no, bɔwen kakra wɔ ho -(Fante) literally to mean that "every sweet thing has a bitter side". The world of Mobile Money has faced so many challenges. Prominent among them is the Momo Fraud.

It is in this response the Telco giant, MTN introduced ID Inclusion during Cash Outs. After days of implementation, this has proved woefully inadequate as it did "no good".

These targeted fraudsters do not always cash out moneys they succeed in frauding, some transfer, buy airtime and bundle with it which are sold to innocent people(especially with pre-active SIMs), make payment with it both online and at payment points etc.

These targeted fraudsters still remain not trapped hence their activities still go on as there are so many ways out. Also tracing these people are always hard because you would always find people using MoMo Account not in their names, and created with un-existing IDs or acquired fraudulently. How do we now bring such Accounts to control?

To curb MoMo Fraud, the following are pertinent.

1. Telcos should cause update of all MoMo Account as was done a decade ago when SIM Registration was introduced. Here, a customer will have to present all their Valid National IDs to be captured in their systems even though only one ID registers the Account, the rest of the IDs with will used for transaction purposes(Cash Out, Payments, Transfer etc).

2. Customers should then be given the chance to update their Accounts(add or remove IDs) occasionally when they acquire any new ID by a "well regulated Agent".

3. At Cash Out and Payment points, Agent will choose the ID type base on what was presented. The system then displays the name and ID number. If details mismatch, system rejects transaction.

4. At Subscriber to Subscriber Transfer, a two-way ID verification will prevent MoMo theft. Here, Subscriber A(sender) sending money to Subscriber B(recipient) will enter their ID number (one in the system of course) as well as Subscriber B(recipient's) ID number.

The Subscriber B (recipient) only cashes out or uses the received money with the same ID as used by Sender.

TELCOS, follow the afore-mentioned steps and say bye bye to MoMo Fraud and MoMo Theft