BoG to blacklist fraudulent MoMo operators
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) will soon blacklist fraudulent mobile money (MoMo) operators as part of measures to sanitise the system.
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Consequently, the BoG is introducing an agent registry that will help monitor the activities of operators who flout the Electronic-Money Issuers (EMI) and Agent Guidelines that regulate Mobile Financial Services in the country.
A Compliance, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Analytics Manager at MTN Mobile Money Limited, Mr Solomon Hayford, said the registry would eventually prevent fraudulent MoMo operators from operating on any telecommunication network.
He said all the telcos in the country would have access and contribute to the formation of the agent registry.
“So, what will happen is that once an agent has been blacklisted from MTN or any of the other telcos, that information will be on the agent registry and will prevent that agent from coming on board for any other mobile money service,” he said at a media engagement on MoMo in Accra.
He said: “Once an agent is blacklisted on the registry he is blacklisted from the industry forever and cannot operate MoMo anywhere in Ghana with any service provider.”
Fighting fraud
MoMo service is a management solution that offers flexibility, total security and convenience of accessing a person’s money on his mobile phone wherever he is.
A traditional bank account is not needed to use the service and transactions are not limited to a bank or agent.
It has been saddled recently with fraud which requires telcos to develop robust infrastructure to deal with the emerging
risk.
Users lose their monies and it has become difficult for security agencies to track down the perpetrators because of the use of forged identities such that the Ghana
Police Service says it can investigate and prosecute only 10 percent of cases reported.
A Senior Manager, AML, Compliance and Analytics at MTN Mobile Money Limited, Mr Godwin Kwami Tamakloe, said about 3,000 agents have been sanctioned over the last three months, vis-à-vis an average of 36 million transactions monthly on MTN MoMo service, out of which 365 involve complaints and those that have been defrauded.
Relating to accusations of MTN staff being part of the fraud, Mr Tamakloe said they had not received any evidence for them to act and maybe investigate.
“It becomes very difficult for you to be accused and not really have any evidence. Perhaps people relate to MTN because of our market share in this industry,” he said.
Security tips
The Manager, Corporate, Business Development and Partnership at MTN, Mr Abdul Majeed Rufai, advised MoMo users not to give out their personal identification number (PIN) at any point in time and said they should frequently change their PINs in order to reduce the risk of their PINs being compromised.