Chief Director for Ministry of Ministry of Communication and Digitalisation, Magdalene Apenteng, has revealed that the SIM card re-registration endeavours will combat fraud associated with the flow of remittances in the country.

According to her, government has instituted efforts at curbing the menace of cyber fraud in the country.

Speaking at a conference organized by Zeepay Ghana, Madam Apenteng further revealed that, government is envisioning partnering with private sector institutions to promote digitalisation as well.

“One of the key [things] identified is the activities of miscreants and fraudsters who take advantage of the system to defraud innocent customers. Mobile money fraud is a great challenge to the operations of mobile money activities in Ghana. Another major effort is the SIM re-registration exercise; the project being led by my ministry to weed out cyber fraud and criminality, especially within the mobile money sector.

“Partnerships are key to implementing successful initiatives, building on specific knowledge, expertise and lessons learned and to filling information gaps. The government is eager and is willing to partner private sector entities to promote the digitalisation of financial sector through such innovating and exciting activity within the digital ecosystem”.

Additionally, she projected the growth of the mobile money sector among a vast number of households.

“In my opinion, over the next few years, mobile money will be more relevant in the economic and financial lives of Ghanaian households and businesses. Indeed, Africa stands to gain immensely from remittances; as we identify and promote digitisation through active, reliable and effective connectivity to promote financial transactions”.

Remittances in Ghana

Commenting on remittances in the country, Madam Apenteng explained the need to provide voice and data service to unconnected communities in Ghana.

“Four hundred communities have since benefited within the last two years, with over 600,000 people connected. Under this project, over eighty two community information centres have also been connected to the internet. These communities will ultimately experience the ability to be able to use the mobile money activity for their various businesses.

“The government is undertaking the rural telephony project through Ghana Investment fund for electronic communications; an agency under my ministry which is expected to close the void created by mobile network operators inability extend coverage to communities with population below a thousand for commercial and economic purposes”.

Meanwhile, the managing director of Zeepay, Andrew Takyi-Appiah has disclosed that his outfit is committed to improving upon the 3.5 billion flow transactions recorded last year.

“The six percent is actually for 2020. In 2020, Ghana did 3.5 billion, amounting to about 23 million transactions, Zeepay contributed 2.4 million of that. In 2021 first half, we’ve done just about the same as what we did in 2020 full year. As at Monday, we had done just about $420 million at about 2.1 million transaction. This year we are poised to do 4.5 million transactions at $840 million. Beyond that contribution, we are also contributing to improve the lives of immigrants and diasporas”.