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During the first eight months of 2023, Mobile Money transactions reached an impressive ¢1.190 trillion, as reported in the September 2023 Summary of Economic and Financial Data released by the Bank of Ghana. This marks a substantial increase compared to the ¢655.97 billion recorded during the same period in 2022.
The data from the Central Bank reveals that July 2023 saw the highest mobile money transaction volume, totaling ¢169.6 billion. What’s noteworthy is that month-on-month mobile money transactions have consistently surpassed ¢130 billion.
This substantial growth in mobile money transactions suggests that the government should be on track to meet its Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy) target for 2023. To provide more context, in January 2023, mobile money transactions amounted to ¢130.1 billion, a significant increase from the ¢76.2 billion recorded during the same month in 2022. This positive trend continued with ¢134.0 billion in February 2023 (compared to ¢76.5 billion in February 2022) and ¢147.5 billion in March 2023 (compared to ¢90.5 billion in March 2022).
Although there was a slight dip to ¢138.8 billion in April 2023 (compared to ¢87.7 billion in April 2022), it rebounded with ¢159.7 billion in May 2023 (compared to ¢71.4 billion in May 2022). June 2023 recorded ¢149.4 billion (compared to ¢77.1 billion in June 2022), followed by a record-breaking transaction of ¢169.6 billion in July 2023, before a slight decrease to ¢161.8 billion in August 2023.
On January 11, 2023, the government made a tax rate adjustment, reducing the tax on electronic transactions from 1.5% to 1.0%. However, despite the substantial growth in mobile money transactions, the government’s revenue from this source has fallen short of expectations.
Additionally, during the first six months of the year, the total value of Mobile Money Interoperability transactions reached an estimated ¢22.795 billion, with the largest single transaction amounting to ¢3.158 billion in April 2023. This indicates that the interoperability of mobile money services is also gaining traction in the market.
