Accra, Ghana//-MobileMoney Limited (MML), a wholly owned subsidiary of Scancom PLC, has called for collaborative efforts to address the rising Mobile Money (MoMo) fraud in the country.
The Head of Products and Services at MobileMoney Limited, Madam Sylvia Otuo-Acheampong made the call at this year’s MoMo Stakeholder Forum held in Accra as part of the company’s ongoing MoMo Season.
She noted that although they are working hard to reduce the growing incidents of MoMo fraud through collaboration and sustained education, the canker is still going on.
“I think one that I took from the key speakers is that it seems like we are doing okay. But we realize that telling me about fraud is different from experiencing it.
And you realize that even people who are educated fall victim to MoMo fraud because of the craftiness of how the fraudsters craft their messages”.
Madam Otuo-Acheampong continued: “They are also increasingly polishing their games. So, they make it sound real. We must keep on educating people and we can’t take that one out if we want to move fintech forward”.
It is not peculiar to Ghana, even other African and European countries that are settled on digital, especially Latin America, where they are making good progress on fintech especially on wallets, these things do come out, according to her.
“It is the exposure of some of these tricks like the skitch that we saw. If we can go down in different languages, and we can go down to everybody, we feel that it will solve the fraudulent activities. You see how they set up, very cheap to set up to defraud people. So, the barrier to entry is zero. It doesn’t cost them anything apart from a laptop and someone who is very good at convincing people to do that”.
So, we also must be up there. A lot of investments have gone into the technical aspect, while a lot of investments are still going into education. But the media role in bringing some of these stories to the public will help us collectively address the MoMo fraud canker, she assured.
Barriers
Speaking on the theme-‘Addressing Barriers to Digital Payments Adoption in Ghana’, the General Manager for Cellulant Ghana, Eric Kortey identified that the increasing rate of online fraud and the fear of losing customers’ money, is one of the key barriers to digital payments in the country.
In recent times, cases of mobile money or bank fraud have tripled. Because of this several customers actually want to discontinue the use of digital payments, he stated.
“They will rather want to make payments in cash because of the fear of being defrauded. It does not happen to only those who are less literate, it happens to all of us too”.
He added that accessibility and smartphone penetration in the country also posed a barrier to the adoption and usage of digital payments products and services.
In his own words: “2G phones unfortunately do not support the innovations that these fintechs are bringing up. So, although the country has made significant progress in increasing access to digital financial services, the good proportion of Ghanaians do not have access to or are unable to participate in what is available”.
Also, digital payments go together with smart devices. Completely adopting digital payments with feature phones will be a big challenge to where we want to go with digital payments in Ghana”.
The CEO of Eagle Innovations Ghana, Madam Winifred Kutin who also spoke on the same theme was quick to add that there is a huge knowledge challenge in the country when it comes to the adoption of digital payments.
“A significant percentage of our customer base are not in the category to fully appreciate the value that we create. The value we create is way more than the customers can appreciate because of the inherent problems we have as a nation”.
Literacy is a very important feature for anything innovative we do especially given that a lot of what we produce is based on the English language which is not a default first language of most Ghanaians.
If we talk about literacy rate, we are talking about the basic ability to read, write and understand English. From the last census report in 2021, Ghana Statistical Service indicated we were 70% literate. It said Ghana’s literacy rate is 70%, meaning we still have 30% of the population who can’t read, write, and understand English”.
Madam Kutin also noted that understanding basic ICT skills, which is called digital literacy rate, is still a major problem in the West African country.
“When we look at basic use of technology products, services and ability to understand what an app is saying so that we can engage with it, a low percentage of our population is covered”.
The next barrier she identified is financial literacy rate: According to recent reports, Ghana’s financial literacy is 32%. Honestly, for financial products like digital payments this is woefully inadequate.
Because it means you have a huge 70% of our population who cannot understand basic things such as debit, balance, shares, among others. This is a huge challenge that we need to overcome, Madam Kutin pointed out.
Measures to address the barriers
Madam Kutin and Mr Kotey called for targeted and robust campaign awareness which should be done through the media, community meetings, interactive workshops, demonstrations, picture-based guide or picture-based education, role play through storytelling through acting, among others to increase the adoption of digital payments in the country.
They also recommended that incentive programs should be instituted for the players in the digital payments ecosystem to create adoption.
For instance, some Payment Service Providers (PSPs) are doing that in addition to the margins that they are getting from the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs).
While financial technologies (fintechs) also give some out to create adoption. So, they should all embrace it.
Again, coming out with customised solutions will be very good in addressing specific needs. “Also, we need to develop payment apps and platforms that cater for the local languages. We can create relatable jingles in these local languages to address the specific needs of the local people.
We need to also develop user-friendly interfaces. Some of the interfaces are very difficult for those who are not literate”.
The Head of Fintech, and Innovation at the Bank of Ghana, Kwame Oppong who was one of the speakers, urged players in the digital payments space to take issues of data protection and data privy very seriously.
“Ensure data privacy and protection to secure consumers and conduct market supervision to ensure safety”.
The Chief Executive Officer, Ghana Interbank Payments and Settlement System (GhiPSS), Achie Hesse, encouraged the fintechs, MNOs and banks in the digital payments sector to pay special attention to the section of Ghanaians who are out of the digital payments space through no fault of them.
