MobileMoney Fintech executive says digital payments now exceed cash use in Ghana
- An MMFL executive estimated Ghana is 50 to 60 per cent cash-light.
- He said digital channels are now preferred by many consumers and businesses.
- He said digital payment records can support small-business credit assessments.
Digital payment channels now account for more than half of financial transactions in Ghana, according to Abdul Razak Issaka-Ali, Chief Commercial and Operations Officer of MobileMoney Fintech Limited (MMFL).
Speaking in an interview reported by the Ghana News Agency, Mr Issaka-Ali estimated that Ghana had become a 50 to 60 per cent cash-light economy. He said cash remained in everyday use, but digital options had become the preferred means of payment for many consumers and businesses.
He attributed the expansion of digital finance over the past decade to cooperation among banks, payment service providers, fintech firms, the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems and the Bank of Ghana. According to him, this collaboration has made electronic transactions more accessible, dependable and secure.
Payments ecosystem
Mr Issaka-Ali said Ghana’s progress went beyond mobile-money use, describing an increasingly connected digital-payments system. He also said international assessments placed Ghana among the world’s top three countries for digital transactions as a share of gross domestic product, though the specific assessments were not identified in the report.
For small and medium-sized enterprises, he said merchant-payment tools were helping owners reduce exposure to cash leakages and theft. The services can also give business owners more immediate visibility over payments and strengthen financial controls, he said.
Digital transaction histories could additionally widen access to credit for smaller businesses, Mr Issaka-Ali said. He explained that lenders were increasingly able to use records of transactions when assessing a firm’s creditworthiness, rather than relying only on conventional collateral.
His comments point to the growing role of payment data and electronic channels in Ghana’s commercial activity, while also indicating that further expansion remains possible.
