Accra, Ghana MobileMoney Limited (MML), a subsidiary of MTN Ghana today signed an agreement with the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) to fight the rising mobile money (MoMo) fraud cases in the country.
The one-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which is subject to renewal seeks to build the capacity of the staff of EOCO to properly investigate MoMo fraud cases in Ghana.
According to the Bank of Ghana (BoG’s) latest data collated from the three sectors (banks, Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions (SDIs) and Payment Service Providers (PSPs) indicate that the count of fraud cases recorded for 2022 was 15,164 and a total loss value of approximately GH¢82 million.
With respect to 2022, the top five fraud categories are-Cash theft (cash suppression), Cyber/email, Fraudulent withdrawals, Impersonation and E-Money frauds, in descending order.
The data which was compiled by the Financial Stability Department of the BoG from 01 January– 31 December 2022 revealed that electronic-money (E-money) recorded 149 cases in 2022, as compared to 116 cases recorded in 2021, an increase of 28.45% in year-on-year terms.
Speaking at the MoU signing ceremony in Accra, executives of MML and EOCO pledged to work assiduously to stamp out MoMo fraud and other fraudulent activities cited by the comprehensive report in the West African country.
The Executive Director of EOCO, CoP Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, assured that with the recent launch of EOCO’s new five-year strategic plan culminating in the change of their vision which is: “To Stay Ahead of Economic and Organised Crime”, EOCO is going to be above economic and organized criminals in the country.
She asked: “How do we stay ahead of economic and organized crimes? Is it because we are just saying with our mouths, or we really want to stay ahead? I want to tell you that we really want to be ahead.
Sometimes, I feel sad when we hear some people say that the criminals are ahead of us, and we should not be comfortable with that statement”.
Madam Addo-Danquah continued: “They (criminals) should not be ahead of us. We should rather be ahead of the criminals and to be ahead of the criminals, we need to collaborate, and we need to work together.
If the criminals are working together, what about those of us who are fighting them? It is for that reason that we have been working together with MobileMoney Limited”.
She recounted that a month or two ago, EOCO got convicted for some mobile money SIM swamps where the criminals were swapping SIM cards and were taking some money from people’s MoMo accounts.
However, through collaboration with MTN and with the bankers’ association and others, the criminals were arrested and convicted after going through the necessary judiciary processes, Madam Addo-Danquah added.
“That should send a strong signal to anyone that it is not something that you can do and get away with that. So, today our meeting here is the signing of this MoU as a new face”.
New face
She described the signing of the MoU as “a new face” that is going to collaborate with MML and help them to stay ahead of economic and organised crime.
In her own words: “The point is that irrespective of whatever that we do. People do that because of money. Mobile Money has been so easy to transfer money to make payment.
It has made our lives very easy for us. While it is making lives easy for us, some people are using that opportunity to also attack us”.
How do we stop them? We can only stop them when we work together. That is why I am happy today that we are going to sign this MoU”.
According to the EOCO boss, the MoU would provide guidelines for them as they are going to get training support from the MML.
Madam Addo-Danquah added: “Some of the things that are new to us and as when you introduce any new product(s) and the vulnerability in those products, you will come back and let law-enforcement know that these are the things that we need to watchout when we are gathering our evidence-these are the areas that we must look to and other things”.
She pledged that they would work together with other law-enforcement, association of banks, and any other stakeholders so that “Economic and Organized Crime Office can stay ahead of the economic and organized crime”.
CEO of MobileMoney Limited on continuous collaboration
The CEO of MobileMoney Limited, Shaibu Haruna reiterated that the company would continue to collaborate with EOCO and other security agencies to ensure that mobile money is safe for all Ghanaians.
This he said because “mobile money has been an integral part of our daily lives as individuals, businesses and we are grateful to our consumers for supporting the growth of this business”.
Mr Haruna however noted that the company and other two mobile companies namely Vodafone Cash and Airteltigo Money are saddled with the issues around fraud which has permeated some of the activities around the mobile money platforms.
“We intend to use this opportunity or collaboration to work hard to combat the increased rate of such incidents”, he assured.
Referring to the Bank of Ghana’s recent report on fraud in the industry, Mr Haruna noted that even though there was a very slight increase in the number of incidents that were reported between 2022 and 2021, the value of what has been lost through mobile money fraud has increased quite significantly.
The report suggested that GH¢26 million was lost to the country’s Electronic Money Issuers (EMIs) in 2022 which is around 103 percentage points growth in financial crime.
“So, it is telling us that there is some value that our valued customers are losing from these organized crimes, and it is our collective responsibility to work with all law-enforcement agencies with the ambit of the law to ensure that these perpetrators are brought to book”.
So, we are very excited about the opportunity to work with EOCO to deliver this mandate. We are excited also around your vision of staying ahead of economic and organised crime. I think that is the way to go. We are wholeheartedly going to support that drive and quest to achieve that objective”, Mr Haruna said.
MoMo transactions by numbers
Indeed, there is a growing usage of e-money among Ghanaians. The year 2022 recorded a value of GH¢1 trillion e-money transactions and the volume of e-money transactions stood at 5 billion, according to the BoG’s recent report.
In 2021, the value of e-money transactions stood at GH¢ 978.32 billion while the volume of e-money transactions stood at 4.25 billion.
