The Mobile Money Interoperability (MMI) platform recorded a whopping 317% growth in the volume of transaction and 267% growth value of transactions between 2018 and 2019.
This was contained in the 2019 summary report from Ghana Inter-Bank Payments and Settlements System (GhIPSS), custodians of the MMI platform.
According to the report, the value of the transactions for 2019 was GHS781.6 million, compared to GHS212.8 million in 2018, and the volume of transaction shot up massively from 2.2 million in 2018 to 9.4 million last year.
The totals for 2019 comprised of wallet-to-wallet, wallet-to-bank, bank-to-wallet, wallet-to-e-zwich and e-zwich-to-wallet transactions.
Among these forms of transactions, the value of wallet-to-wallet topped with GHS618 million cash float from an equally huge 9.1 million wallet to wallet transactions.
Chief Executive of GhIPSS, Archie Hesse, lauded the mobile money market leader, MTN Mobile Finance for agreeing to open up its platform to interoperate with wallets on other networks to make mobile money interoperability possible.
“The market leader had every opportunity to keep an enclosed platform and still succeed on it’s own but they showed commitment to the growth of the entire industry by opening up and I think they deserve commendation,” he stated at a media encounter.
Wallet-to-wallet transfers were followed by wallet-to-bank transactions, which recorded GHS162.7million in value and 253,500 in volume; then for bank-to-wallet, as many as 1.5 million transactions. But in terms of value, it was only GHS552,500.
Transfers from e-zwich cards to mobile wallets also recorded an impressive GHS143.2 million in value, from some 326,000 transactions, while wallet to e-zwich saw GHS687,700 cash float from some 5,500 transactions.
Archie Hesse noted that because of the convenience of mobile money, a lot of e-zwich users saw it as an easy way to cash their money than to go to a bank or an ATM, so many people transferred money from their e-zwich cards into their mobile wallets for easy cash cashout.
E-zwich
Speaking of e-zwich, the report also showed an appreciable growth in volume and value of e-zwich transactions between 2018 and 2019.
Volume of e-zwich transactions grew by 39% from 7.7 million in 2018 to 10.7 million in 2019, while the value of transaction also grew by 12% from GHC5.6 billion to GHC6.3 billion same period.
The GhIPSS boss attributed the growth in e-zwich usage to its adoption by the government for social intervention programs like LEAP, National Service Scheme, NABCo and others.
Adom News