Latest data from the Ghana Interbank Payment & Settlement Systems (GhIPSS), indicate that a total of 43.9 million transactions were processed under the Mobile Money Interoperability (MMI) system in 2020, representing a 367% increase from the 9 million transactions processed in 2019.

According to the report, the MMI performance was driven by three use cases namely: transfers between wallets across Mobile Money Operators (MMOs); transfers from mobile wallets to bank accounts and transfers from mobile wallets to e-zwich card wallets.

Also, the real-time portfolio comprising GhIPSS Instant Pay, Mobile Money Interoperability, Proxy Pay, GhQR etc recorded significant growth, closing the year with the strongest performance.

The major contributor to this performance was MMI; processing a total of 43.9 million transactions, representing a 367% increase from 9 million transactions processed in 2019.Speaking during a media briefing, Chief Executive Officer of GhIPSS, Archie Hesse attributed the increase to COVID-19 and increased awareness that funds can now be transferred across wallets of different telecommunications networks.

“The upsurge in the use of these real-time services was largely influenced by COVID-19 related factors such as the 3 weeks lockdown which restricted the physical movements of people, public awareness through extensive education, discouraging the handling of physical cash and encouraging the use of electronic alternatives and the incentivization from the financial services industry with fee waivers on their services,” he said.

He further added that, “in 2019 in terms of volume we had 199.19 and in 2020 42.89, that’s a significant jump of 367%. The question is what would we have done in the absence of mobile money interoperability. Again if you look at the value, it moved from the millions into the billions.”

Mobile Money Interoperability is one of the biggest financial sector breakthroughs that increased mobile money transactions in Ghana.

Since its introduction, many organisations have set their systems to accept mobile money payments, since their customers can pay them regardless of the network they subscribe to.

Mobile Money Interoperability and the GhIPSS Instant Pay (GIP) are two electronic payment channels that experts say could significantly deepen financial inclusion in Ghana. Both products continue to record very high growth rates.

The GhIPSS Instant Pay platform also recorded significant growth in both transfers from bank accounts to mobile wallets and transfers between bank accounts across banks.

“At the end of 2020, GIP transactions increased by 257% from 1.9 million in 2019 to 6.8 million. GhIPSS also recorded introductory transactions from new services such as Proxy Pay and GhQR code,” the report showed.