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General Manager for MTN Mobile Money Limited, Eli Hini has said that COVID-19 has driven significant growth in mobile money wallets, volume and value of transaction, and even in the number of agents.

“Between June 2019 and June 2020 we have seen significant growth on the mobile money platform and a greater part of the that happened during the COVID-19 season,” he said.

Eli Hini was speaking in an interview on Graphic Talks 360 on the topic – Maximizing the Potential of Mobile Money as a Payment Option in Ghana – which was held live of Facebook.

Spelling out the figures, he noted that June 2019 closed with 12.9 million active mobile money wallets in the country, but by the close of June this year, it has increased by a little over 20% to 15.5 million.

Similarly, the volume/number of mobile money transactions, over the same period, grew significantly by almost 70% from 157 million to 226 million transactions, while the value of those transactions also grew by 62.5% from GHC3 billion to GHC4.8 billion.

Eli Hini said the growth also affected the number of mobile money agent points across the country, which also grew by 68.4% from 180,000 to 263,000, overwhelmingly bigger than the number of bank branches across the country.

“The COVID-19 incentives really drove this growths because we saw a spike in the traction in terms of adoption after we implemented those incentives,” he said.

COVID-19 Incentives

COVID-19 has been in the Ghana since March this year, and the telecoms operators have since churned out a number of reliefs packages, which include some incentives on the mobile money platforms in collaboration with the Bank of Ghana.

The mobile money incentives include free transfer of the first GHC100 in a day, then a boost in the maximum wallet balance, as well as maximum daily and monthly transaction thresholds for three categories of customers – Minimum KYC (know your customer), Medium KYC and Enhanced KYC customers.