MPower Payments, a Ghana-made simple and seamless online payment app, won five awards including Top App of the Year at the second TopApps Awards this year.

The comprehensive online payment platform, MPower Payments, developed by SMSGH won Web App of the Year, Most Innovative New App of the Year, Top User Experience App of the Year and Finance App of the Year. Plus the makers of MPower, SMSGH were also adjudged App Company of the Year.

Currently MPower Payments integrates all cedi-based electronic payment systems including Mobile Money and ATM cards and links them to both online and offline merchants in a way that enables users to make payments for goods and services online without exposing their details to cyber criminals.

It is very high on security with a green bar SSL, verified by US-based DigiCert on the advice of Dun and Bradstreet. It means in the rarest circumstance where a user’s details are compromised, DigiCert provides an insurance cover for the user so it will bear the liabilities.

MPower Payments, which went live online about a year ago, attracted some 4,000 users by July 2013, recording transactions to the tune of GHC120,000 a month.

But currently, two months on, it now has over 15,000 registered accounts, recording more than 10,000 active users doing transactions of up to a million Ghana cedis.

As of July, it had a little over 400 registered merchants, but according to Senior Product Manager, George Mensah “we now have more merchants and many more and bigger merchants are coming onboard to ensure by the second transactions.” 

The platform allows users to safely move money even from bank accounts and Mobile Money accounts unto to their MPower account for online transaction and vis-a-versa.

George Mensah believes the decoration of MPower Payments at this TopApps Awards would drive innovation, relevance and commercialisation in the app/software development industry.

“This goes to show that when you are developing an app you should think beyond the nice features of the app and think about how it can make life easier for people and how you can monetize it,” he said.

MPower Payments is currently a strictly cedi-based platform and active in only Ghana but SMSGH plans to take it to the rest of Africa by third quarter next year (Q3-14).

General Manager of SMSGH, Alex Adjei-Bram said the company’s emergence as App Company of the Year was also apt because they have developed several relevant apps like the JumpFon, which provides users with a bevy of mobile entertainment content on short code *714#.

It also has a bulk SMS app called MYtxtBox, and several other SMS aggregation apps for banks, insurance companies, media houses, political parties and several organisations and individuals across Ghana and parts of Africa.

 Meanwhile, at the TopApp Awards, organised by PopOut, eleven other apps and one individual won competitive and honorary Awards.

 The other Award winners include Mobile App of the Year - Nkyea Twi Phrasebook; SMS App of the Year - Infoline, Social App of the Year – Farmerline; Entertainment App of the Year - iWarrior and Kijiji; Utility App of the Year - Retail Tower and Health App of the Year – MoTech.

The others are Education App of the Year – MyPassCo; eGovernance App of the Year - 233Law, and Esoko won Agriculture App of the Year, while Eyram Tawiah of LetiArts was adjudged App Developer of the Year for developing iWarrior and Kijiji, believed to be Africa’s first game app in Apple Store.

Speaking at the award ceremony, Hon Victoria Hamah, Deputy Minister for Communication, emphasized the fact that “data is the future” and the apps which are developed locally must be “relevant to the business community and civil society”.

She emphasised the fact that with the continuous increase in bandwidth and mobile subscription, the country is ready for data consumption revolution which requires the development of more apps.

The Deputy also said she was thoroughly impressed with the quantity, quality, relevance of the apps exhibited at the Awards.

In her welcome address, Madam Dorothy Gordon, Director-General of Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, revealed that apps developed from Ghana are ranked higher in terms of quality and finishing than most from other African countries, in the World Summit Awards, of which she is a judge.

PopOut, the organizers of the annual TopApps Award hope to host a more elaborate and highly competitive awards event next year with sponsorship and strategic partnership.

Managing Director of PopOut, Maximus Ametorgoh believes “this will create a sense of competition among the app developers and also empower the youth through the creation of innovative applications.”

“We want to be able to give more prizes by way of cash, resources and packages to winners next year. We want the Telcos and other industry players to come onboard.  We live in the age of apps. Apps are the drivers of data consumption,” Ametorgoh said.

He further contended that “internet is used to consume content online so there is the need to collaborate to create apps so subscribers can consume more data. People do not use internet because it is cheap or free. They use it because of the content they want to consume. If there is no relevant content, people will not subscribe to or use internet even if it is free.”

 TopApps Award is an annual applications exhibition and award event which gives app developers in Ghana the opportunity to showcase their innovative apps and games to technology and business participants as well as win awards for their outstanding products. The apps are judged based on their market relevance, originality and innovativeness.

Partners for TopApps Award 2013 include Google (Ghana), Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, Nokia, Erke Ghana, EventStreet Africa, TelecomEye, GhanaBusinessNews and Citi97.3fm. TopApps Award is a PopOut initiative.