MoMo Agents Relax Cap On Withdrawals
The Mobile Money Advocacy Group (MOMAG) has agreed to suspend the GHC1,000 cap on mobile money withdrawals.
It comes after meetings with the relevant authorities over their “meagre and static” commissions on mobile money withdrawals.
“We are suspending with immediate effect the action on GHȻ1000 withdrawals for a while as we wait for the final resolution as promised by the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications and other Telcos,” MOMAG said in a press statement on December 21.
The group has thus issued a directive to all other Mobile Money Associations to comply with the directive.
“We think it will be prudent to hold on with the action for now. We are by this, urging MoMAG members to revert to the initial mode of transaction, while we wait for the outcome of the discussions in the coming year, 2024.”
“We believe that failure to heed to this call of truncating this action will amount to disrespect to these institutions who had a fruitful meeting with us – the four mobile money associations.”
Background
MTN charges for mobile money cash transactions at a fixed rate pegged at GH₵10 cedis on GH₵1000 and above for cash withdrawals at service centres.
However, some agents and merchants resorted to splitting cash transactions, where every GH₵1000 is charged GH₵10. This meant that clients who withdrew GHC3,000 would pay Ghc30 cedis instead of the approved GHc10, Ghc40 for GHc4,000 and GHC50 for GhC5,000.
This has been described as illegal by telecommunication company MTN, which has urged customers to report such agents.
On November 30, all four mobile money agents associations in Ghana jointly announced a GHC1000 cap on MoMo withdrawals. It justified that the measure was to “ensure fair compensation for the dedicated agents”.
