MTN, Ghana’s leading telecommunication company has launched its ‘Mobile Money Month’ celebration in Accra.
The month long celebration which comes off every year in August is aimed at promoting the use of mobile money and the benefits it brings to individuals and businesses.
Speaking at the launch, Mr Eli Hini, General Manager of Mobile Financial Services said the celebration of Mobile Money Month provides an opportunity to educate people about the use and features of mobile money.
He said: “the celebration of Mobile Money Month has been a great success for many reasons; it gives us dedicated time to consider the benefits of the service, emphasise its relevance and explain its features. It also provides an opportunity for us to go into more communities to engage and solicit feedback.”
MTN Ghana was first to launch the mobile money service in Ghana in 2009.The service has since being adopted by other telecommunication networks. At its inception, the service received low patronage from Ghanaians, but it has since made progress with a lot of people using the service to transact businesses.
“The first few years were slow and difficult because the service was new and people were not familiar with the process and benefits. Once we got through the hump of lack of familiarity, we have made a lot of progress,” Mr Hini said.
He said the service now has over 5 million active subscribers and over 46000 merchants nationwide.
“Customer behaviour has changed and we are seeing the usage of more advanced services such as bill payments, salary payments, school fees payment, payment for goods and services and several others,” Mr Hini stated
With improved usage of the mobile money services, Mr Hini said MTN has decided to revisit the “cashless” society agenda. He called on regulatory bodies to provide the necessary policies that will promote the use of mobile money in other to make the cashless society agenda a reality.
“As the leader in Ghana’s mobile money and telecommunications sector, MTN Ghana is committed to taking bold steps to ensure that Ghana goes cashless with mobile money,” he said.
He also assured that Ghana’s mobile money service is safe and efficient.
Activities lined up for the month long celebration include: stakeholder conference, inter tertiary institutions debate, consumer promotions and merchant/agent fora.
Mobile money partner banks will also launch their own initiatives throughout the month to excite customers who transact mobile money business with them.