About 15 million Ghanaians have bank accounts, says Dr Bawumia
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia says the achievement of Mobile Money Interoperability places Ghana as the fastest-growing mobile money market in Africa
Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia says about 15 million Ghanaians essentially have bank accounts following the successful implementation of mobile money payment interoperability by the government.
Addressing the youth wing of the governing New Patriotic Party to mark International Youth Day in Accra, Dr Bawumia described how the triangular feature of mobile money payments interoperability allows the transfer of funds from mobile money accounts to bank accounts and vice versa, as well as from mobile or bank accounts to biometric payment card accounts (e-zwich). This, in effect, “means that anyone with a mobile account has a bank account. They can make payments out of it and receive interest on their balances.”
He said: “Many people did not and do not understand that we have moved away from the world of branch banking into branchless banking. You can have your bank account on your phone. You can do banking without visiting a bank branch or signing a cheque.”
Dr Bawumia said Ghana is the first and only country in Africa to achieve mobile money interoperability and thanks to that Ghana is now the fastest-growing mobile money market in Africa. Mobile money transactions in 2019 amounted to GHC32.8 billion – a 215% jump in two years.
The total number of transactions recorded under mobile money as of December 2019 was 200 million, whereas the number of transactions involving banks was 599,000 – just about 3% of the number of mobile money transactions. Over 15 million people have mobile money accounts in Ghana.
He said: “Many people did not and still do not quite understand what I meant when I said every eligible Ghanaian will be able to get a bank account. They were thinking about traditional bank accounts.
“Well, I can say without any fear of contradiction that as a result of mobile money interoperability over 15 million Ghanaians today, many of whom are unbanked in the traditional sense, have a bank account. This is a remarkable achievement and shows the power of digitisation.”
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