MTN Ghana is a major contributor to financial inclusion – CEO

MTN Ghana says it has made major contributions to financial inclusion through its products and services, business start-ups and job creation.

It said its products and services had helped to unlock talents, businesses and sectors of the Ghanaian economy as the entity had grown from a telecommunications company to a technology one.

Madam Sylvia Otuo-Acheampong, Head, Product & Services, Mobile Money Limited, MTN in a plenary

session, said over 13 million Ghanaians were using mobile money and 140, 000 merchants using it for payment transactions.

“We have about 15, 000 Point of Sales (POS) that accept mobile money nationwide, and we have around 240, 000 agents nationwide,” she said.

Madam Sylvia Otuo-Acheampong was speaking at the company’s Business CTIO Roundtable Africa 2023 in Accra to alloe industry players discuss strategies and issues to strengthen the Fintech sector and businesses while creating value for customers.

Madam Otuo-Acheampong said: “One of the ways mobile money is also dealing with security is to create an ecosystem within an ecosystem where we do a thorough deep-diving in how to secure partners and customers so that even if one platform is affected it would not affect others.”

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), she said staff were always sensitised on fraudulent activities, adding that there were tools in to protect customer data.

“We are collaborating with the security agencies to deal swiftly with fraud cases the moment it is detected so we can nip it in the bud, however, we need to do more education for our vulnerable customers not to share their pins,” Madam Otuo-Acheampong said.

MTN currently has five platforms, the Mobile Money platform which renders Fintech solutions; Ayoba App that delivers digital services; Enterprise services that supports business start-ups; Network services and the African API marketplace with products like e-health and e-commerce.

Mr Dario Bianchi, Chief Digital Officer, MTN, said,

data privacy and cyber security were crucial to the industry and MTN had robustly designed their security key, adding that government, MTN and agencies must continue to collaborate against threats.

He told the GNA there were plans to give incentives to customers who use their Apps and in the next three months there could be some special bundles and promotions.

Mr Solomon Kofi Richardson, Director, Technical Services, National Information Technology Agency (NITA), said government had begun some measures and foundations to promote growth like the Digital Economic Policy at the Cabinet level for consideration.