Ghana: BoG warns Mobile Money loan defaulters to clear debt

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) is warning individuals who have acquired loans through Mobile Money platforms but have deliberately refused to register their SIM cards with the intention of avoiding repayment of the loans to rescind the decision and clear the debt.

A statement from the BoG stressed that, “failure to repay such loans will attract negative repercussions on borrowers’ credit reports or history and could subsequently adversely affect any chance of obtaining loan facilities from other financial institutions and credit providers in future”.

The statement added that “borrowers who have discarded their SIM Cards are advised to contact their telecommunication service providers or respective lenders, to discuss repayment arrangements to avoid adverse information on their credit reports that could deny them access to future credit facilities”.

Mobile Money transactions for first half of 2022

Total Mobile Money transactions in the first half of 2022 significantly surpassed cheque transactions by a massive ¢366.7 billion, the Summary of Economic and Financial Data from the Bank of Ghana revealed.

This was however less than the ¢374.8 billion recorded during the same period of 2021.

A cursory look at the data indicated that cheque transactions were higher during the second quarter of 2022 (April 2022 to June 2022) than the same period last year.

This may be due to the expected implementation of the Electronic-Transaction Levy in May 2022, but the concern is the increasing use of cheque.

Whilst total Mobile Money Transaction in the first half of 2022 stood at ¢480 billion, that of cheque transactions was ¢113.3 billion.

This is against ¢476.7 billion (Mobile Money) and ¢101.9 billion (cheque) during the same period in 2021.

According to the data from the Bank of Ghana, the value of mobile money transactions in first half of 2022 were January 2022 (¢76.2 billion), February 2022 (¢76.8 billion), March 2022 (¢90.5 billion) and April 2022 (¢87.7 billion), May 2022 (¢71.4 billion) and June 2022 (¢77.4 billion).

For cheque, the total value were January 2022 (¢16.1 billion), February 2022 (¢16.8 billion), March 2022 (¢21.8 billion), April 2022 (¢18.3 billion), May 2022 (¢20.3 billion) and June 2022 (¢20.0 billion).