Total Mobile Money transactions in the first half of 2022 significantly surpassed cheque transactions by a massive ¢366.7 billion, the Summary of Economic and Financial Data from the Bank of Ghana has revealed.

This is however less than the ¢374.8 billion recorded during the same period of 2021.

A cursory look at the data indicates that cheque transactions were higher during the second quarter of 2022 (April 2022 to June 2022) than the same period last year.

This may be due to the expected implementation of the Electronic-Transaction Levy in May 2022, but the concern is the increasing use of cheque.

Whilst, total Mobile Money Transaction in the first-half of 2022 stood at ¢480 billion, that of cheque transactions was ¢113.3 billion.

This is against ¢476.7 billion (Mobile Money) and ¢101.9 billion (cheque) during the same period in 2021.

According to the data from the Bank of Ghana, the value of mobile money transactions in first half of 2022 were January 2022 (¢76.2 billion), February 2022 (¢76.8 billion), March 2022 (¢90.5 billion) and April 2022 (¢87.7 billion), May 2022 (¢71.4 billion) and June 2022 (¢77.4 billion).

For cheque, the total value were January 2022 (¢16.1 billion), February 2022 (¢16.8 billion), March 2022 (¢21.8 billion), April 2022 (¢18.3 billion), May 2022 (¢20.3 billion) and June 2022 (¢20.0 billion).

Mobile Money transactions still dominate banking transactions

Many were anticipating that Mobile Money transactions for this year will fall significantly because of the implementation of the E-Levy.

However, so far according to the data, the reduction in the transactions had been minimal.

During the whole of 2021, even with the announcement of E-levy, there were month-on-month fluctuations in Mobile Money transactions.

Going forward, market watchers want banks to dig deep to innovate and offer solutions similar to that of Mobile Money in order to compete in the digital banking space.

Alternatively, the financial intermediaries could partner the telecom firms to take advantage of the fast growing market.

Already, the Bank of Ghana has reached far with its piloting of the digital currency – the e-Cedi, a move which is expected to be launched soon to boost the cash lite agenda.

In 2021, Mobile Money transactions, however, outstripped cheque transactions by ¢770.4 billion.