MTN GHANA has begun the 10th anniversary celebration of its Mobile Money (MoMo) service.
As part of the celebration, the telecom giant is offering for grab, several amazing prizes to its customers.
Notable among the prizes are 10 cars, Samsung televisions and smartphones.
At the launch of the celebration on Thursday, June 6, 2019, at the Madina Market in Accra, over 25 MoMo customers were selected randomly and each rewarded with Gh¢ 500.
Speaking at the launching ceremony, General Manager of MTN MoMo, Eli Hini, highlighted the immense economic impacts that the service has offered to the general public over the last 10 years.
He disclosed that from the days of skepticisms about the safety of financial transactions through MoMo, members of the public have come to embrace the service.
He noted that customers have used the service for getting loans, payment of pensions, insurance, and general financial transactions.
According to him, MTN Ghana expected MoMo to be the preferred payment channel to do any financial transactions in the future.
MoMo Journey
The MoMo service began with MTN’s desire to get the Mobile phone to go
beyond the ordinary, he said.
The Company went through discussions and deliberations with technology experts, industry regulators and stakeholders, Mr. Hini revealed.
MTN began working on MoMO and started testing the system ahead of the launch.
“Per our records the very first successful
transaction was done by a staff of MTN on 25th Sept, 2008 at 3:51pm. Here are a few interesting records: First merchant MTN Graphic Rd Branch, i.e. 13th October, 2008 First Bank Branch Merchant Ecobank Silver Star Branch, 11th Dec, 2008 First External Merchant Aki Micro Trading Ent, 15th July, 2009,” according to him.
He said “We officially launched the service on July 21st 2009 with the Governor of the Bank of Ghana at the time Paul Acquah, and with Bruno Akpaka our first General Manager.”
From less than 100,000 after
6months of launch, he said, MoMo’s registered subscriber numbers have reached the 14 million milestone over the 10 year period.
He said MoMo started with nine partner banks and now working closely with 18 partner banks.
“Our agents are around 124, 000. By the end of quarter one of 2019 we recorded 411million transactions on the
MoMo platform,” he said.
He added that “We are actively promoting financial growth. Between 2016 and 2018 we made Gh¢ 139million cedis Interest Payments to over 10 million customers.”
However, Mr. Hini observed some challenges with MoMo, notable among them being fraud.
The General Manager has therefore encouraged MoMo users to be more security conscious.
He indicated that management of MTN Ghana would work to improve upon security of the service.
“Bottom line is that we will continue to improve the service,” he said.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MTN GHANA, Selorm Adadevoh, expressed optimism about the future of MoMo.
He said “the future is bright with Mobile Money and I look forward to be on that journey with you.”
BY Melvin Tarlue