From MoMo skeptic to advocate
When MTN first introduced mobile money in Ghana 10 years ago, I was a skeptic who preferred to feel and see solid cash over keeping money in digital form.
I just didn’t trust anything about digital payment, not even the technology device I hold every day - my phone.
Advertisement
“I will never keep money on my phone”, I vowed anytime I saw a mobile add running in the media.
My Skepticisms were reinforced when the fisherman in the first mobile money advert asked the wife, Na sika no wo hen) literally meaning, so where is the money? When she came dancing and jubilating with the village folks that her son in the city had sent her money through her mobile phone.
The story of mobile money can sometimes be told in distorted forms and oftentimes with emotionally hyped narratives of fraud and scams.
Yet, MoMo is no such evil, it is helping to anchor major community developments, transforming livelihoods and economically empowering indigenes.
MoMo is king
Though people still favour holding cash, mobile money is king.
But ten years on, I am a convert and an advocate of digital payments. MTN Mobile Money has broken the long-held myths of an industry with its image sometimes battered by awkward and wild rumours.
In the cities and even in very remote areas in the country, digital payment systems are anchoring major community economic empowerment with booming floods of mobile money shops.
Many Ghanaians are making a living by operating mobile money shops with the dominant service being the MTN Mobile Money Service.
Today, the story of mobile money is worth telling. Stripped of any flowery depictions, mobile money holds an important promise…perhaps ample testament that when regulatory systems work and ethical transactions are guaranteed, mobile money presents a great future for the nation’s economic development.
Today, MTN mobile money is helping to digitize the agric sector. MoMo as the payment platform is popularly known in Ghana, is having a significant impact on the Agriculture value chain, particularly within the Cocoa industry. Outgrowers for CARGIL and OLAM are being paid through mobile money.
It is striking to note that many computer illiterates have been able to easily adapt to the mobile money system using very simple phones, while currently Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) payments are being done through mobile money.
LEAP on MoMO
The perception that LEAP beneficiaries may not find it easy to use the concept has been discounted. On the contrary they are receiving payments on their phones because it helps them avoid long queues associated with manual payments.
Today, the service has graduated from just making payments to farmers to efficient ways of monitoring the quantity of produce purchased from the farmer and amount to be paid.
In the last 12 months, about GH¢2.19 billion has been received by MoMo customers into their wallets from abroad, facilitating remittance services into the country.
General Manager, Mobile Money Limited, Mr Eli Hini recounts that the current registered subscriber numbers have reached 14 million over the 10-year period.
“We started with 9 partner banks and now working closely with 18 partner banks and counting with approximately 124, 000 agents across the country”, he said.
“By the end of quarter one of 2019 we recorded 411 million transactions on the MoMo platform, which is an indication that people have now become more conversant with using MoMo to undertake various transactions,” he acknowledged.
Quality of life
But just as modern mobile telephony technology has enhanced quality of life, it has also left in its trail a streak of concern; easy technology for users comes with the attendant easy loopholes for fraudsters.
That the mobile money concept has been an efficient and important addition to the payment platforms is not in doubt; yet the associated threats cannot be wished away.
The major challenge has to do with the four figure pin passwords used by subscribers. Many users use easily predicable passwords such as dates of birth or mobile phone numbers making their accounts vulnerable to fraudsters.
Yet again, another critical challenge has to do with the management of passwords by subscribers where security consciousness with regard to passwords is far below the minimum threshold.
In 2016, a total of 430 fraud cases were reported and these were in the areas of false promotions, scams, stealing of cash and over charging. It is heartwarming to note that efforts to beat the fraudsters have been stepped up, particularly by MTN.
Beating fraudsters
One way to beat the fraudsters is through effective pin management, officials of the MTN Mobile Money Service usually advise. They strictly prohibit the transfer or exposure of PINs to others.
They also note that, some fraudsters use modern technology to issue unauthorized prompts to the phones of subscribers requesting subscribers to feed in their passwords for a particular service.
What this means is that the fraudsters pose as operators of the Mobile Phone Services when in fact they are not. Once a subscriber feeds in his or her password, they can save the password and use it for money withdrawals.
One way to address this is for users to avoid feeding their passwords into fishy prompts. The experts also advice smart phone users to download anti-viruses for their smart phones, to help block unauthorized prompts and apps that may seek to steal their information and also caution users against sending monies to unknown third parties.
The future is still one for mobile money transactions, many have predicted. The cards may seem sophisticated for many people and so mobile money may dominate the financial eco-system in the next 20-30years, which calls for more safeguards and concerted efforts from all to help effectively secure mobile money systems.
