MTN Ghana has rewarded 250 customers for emerging winners in its mobile money promotion after using the service for business and personal transactions.

The award ceremony was the first to be organised on the three-month MOMO consumer promo campaign to encourage customers to access digitalised system of business transactions.

Among the awards were an IPhone X for the ultimate winner, a Samsung S9 Plus for the first runner up, as well as a 49 and 40-inch Samsung television sets for the third and fourth prizes.

Three consumers who created applications to promote the usage of MOMO in businesses were also awarded.

The Ultimate winner, with an application called ‘thrill,’ received GH¢10,000.00, the first runner-up, with an application named ‘Treasury,’ received GH¢5,000.00, while GH¢3,000.00 went to the second runner-up, who developed the application, ‘Ticket Miller’.

Other winners received cash prizes ranging from GH¢500.00 to GH¢2,000.00.

Mr Eli Hini, the General Manager of Mobile Money Limited, MTN Ghana, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview that 250 consumers were awarded nationwide and that the organisation created a platform for each winner to receive his or her award at any MTN Office of convenience.

He said the promo was to encourage the public to use mobile money for almost all payment services instead of using cash, a step, he said, would support the Government’s agenda to promote a digital economy.

“It will save us from printing a lot of papers for transactions; control and enable tracking of transactions and make it easier for payments into bank accounts,” he said.

Mr Hini noted that MOMO is also a value addition for businesses because organisations may not need to carry bulky sums of money to deposit into a bank account.

He disclosed that MTN gives quick loan to users of MOMO by tracking its loyal customers adding; “The more you use MOMO, the higher your chances of winning and, therefore, the awardees were the ones who used the service the most.”

He said the promo, which would end in December 2018, would reward 750 loyal consumers.

Mr Derrick Asomani, the Ultimate Winner, who received the IPhone X, told the GNA that he was informed on Thursday, October 18, by the MTN Service Centre of an award he had won for using the service.

“Honestly, when I was called, I couldn’t believe it was true so I called the MTN Customer line again to verify and had a confirmation. However, I still couldn’t believe it until I came here today and was given my phone,” he said.

He said he did a lot of business transactions including sending and receiving money on MOMO to emerge the winner.