Ghana has emerged as the latest digital finance market to experience mixed fortunes with the launch of mobile money platforms - with South African-based operators having also recently suspended similar services.

Digital finance research firm, Mondato says "misaligned incentives and a lack of clearly apportioned responsibilities between banks and MNOs led to a level of stagnation in the market".

According to researchers, this prompted the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to rethink its entire strategic and regulatory framework, leading to an "authoritarian" and heavy-handed approach to regulating the industry in a manner that disregards industry input.

Some progress

The country has made some progress in strengthening its digital finance market.

Ghana has one of the highest banked populations in Sub-Saharan Africa, at around 30%, and boasts of one of the 10 highest unique mobile subscriber penetration rates, at almost 50%.

There has been continued investment from major stakeholders in mobile money platforms, including MTN (whose Ghanaian mobile money deployment accounts for 6% of MTN Ghana's revenue).

The GSMA has also recognised Ghana as a top tier mobile money market saying that more than 40% of the country's adult population are active mobile money users.

Afb Ghana launched a new mobile loan product, while MTN has joined the X-pay elite with the launch of an Android-based NFC mobile 'Tap-to-Pay' payment.

However, Ghana's digital finance ecosystem continues to struggle says Mondato.

The BoG has been accused of focusing exclusively on electronic money issues, such as MNOs and their impact on banks.

Experts say the central bank's push for interoperability among the country's already fairly developed retail banking infrastructure using a bank-led model of mobile money (technically, branchless banking) has faltered.

The research firm also noted that the establishment of the GhIPPS, a central bank owned company that operated a switch to digitally link the country's legacy banking systems, did not have the desired outcome because of limited interoperability take off between the mobile money ecosystem and the banking system.

As such, the BoG has invited tenders for a new switch, the Ghana Retail Payments Infrastructure (GRPI). The process has been dogged by controversy after Sibton, "a little-known company with a mere five named staff members on its website" won the bid.

"On the broader economic and monetary front, Ghana is still plagued by the same problems that it hoped mobile money and digital finance could help alleviate: a banking sector that is under-capitalised and over-exposed, to say nothing of the opportunity costs imposed by the regulatory and interoperable quagmires," say Mondato researchers.