Mobile money interoperability (MMI) has increased the total cumulative value of mobile transactions in Ghana to GHC978 billion at the end of last year from GHC78 billion in 2017, Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has said.
Speaking at the 2022 Annual National Internal Audit and Governance Conference, organised by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the vice-president also noted that Ghana is the first and currently the only country in Africa that has done mobile money interoperability between bank accounts and mobile wallets.
“No other country has been able to do what we have done,” he said, explaining that what the likes of Kenya and Rwanda did was mobile money interoperability between the telcos where money could be sent from Vodafone to AirtelTigo or MTN.
Dr. Bawumia launched Ghana’s first mobile money interoperability system to be administered by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) through the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems Limited (GhlPSS) to eliminate the complexities and inconveniences associated with transfers across the various mobile money networks in the country.
The move placed Ghana on the global stage as one of the countries making headway in mobile money acceptability and usage.
With the launch of the mobile money interoperability system, customers can transfer funds from one mobile money wallet to another wallet across networks, reducing the cost of initiating transactions across networks; as customers no longer needed the services of a third-party payment provider to initiate transfers across networks.
It thus further deepened financial inclusion and promoted cashless transactions in the country.
This development comes as Dr. Bawumia acknowledged that Ghana has made tremendous progress in building the digital infrastructure that serves as the bedrock for our digitalised economy as part of the paradigm shift in economic transformation.
“We approached the building of this digital infrastructure on the key pillars of standardising individual identification using the Ghana Card; solving the address and property systems using GhanaPost GPS; solving under-banking and bringing financial inclusion to most people through a robust mobile money and bank interoperability and digital payment platform; and integration of government databases and digitising public service delivery using the Ghana.gov platform.”
Already, the impacts of these initiatives including efficient public service delivery by all Ministries, Departments and Agencies on the Ghana.gov portal, combatting corruption among others are beginning to be realised.
“As a government, we are championing the move towards a fully digitalised economy and there is no going back to the manual and inefficient ways of doing things,” he said.
Against this background, he noted that the ability of internal auditors, in a digitalised economy, to provide independent assurance that public sector institutions’ risk management, governance and internal control processes are operating effectively depends on “embracing and adoption of digital technology.”
He said the internal audit function of the IIA Ghana must be well-positioned to help organisations accomplish their objectives by providing insight and foresight. “This must be achieved by adopting the systematic disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control and governance.”
The president of IIA Ghana, Harriet Akua Karikari, also speaking at the event, said the conference would enable internal auditors to share innovative ideas and insights to elevate the profession and contribute their quota toward national development.
She said the Institute had adopted digitalisation and technological solutions in its operations and governance structures to promote efficiency and assured that they will provide an independent assessment to senior-level government officers to facilitate decision-making in a digitalised environment.
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