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Interest payments to mobile money subscribers begins Sunday

The first quarter of 2016 interest payment is therefore on September 11, 2016, and second quarter payment is due on September 18, 2016.

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Depositors will earn between 1.5% to 7% interests on their deposit.

Tara Squire, Commercial Director at Tigo Ghana has welcomed the development in an interview Joy FM. He noted that paying interest between 1.5 percent to “7 percent [to customers] is a fair deal.”

The Southern Zonal Manager for GN Bank, Kofi Fosu, explained that the interest payments will be done after discussions between the telcos and the respective banks that keep the money.

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“The banks are not going to have the individual telcos customers account. No we can’t manage that. We are managing the telcos account. And therefore we agreed for instance that if you have GHC10 million in your account, you are getting between 10 to 15 percent on the GHC10 million.

“If you move your account to say GHC20, GHC50 million we can top it up to over 18%. That goes to the telcos and then the telcos also determine how much they will offer their customers who have wallet [mobile money account],” he said.

Head of Vodafone Cash, Martison Obeng-Agyei also explained that banks will pay the money that will be shared to mobile money subscribers as interest into an operational account within the telcos’ control.

“The banks will pay the money into an operational account that is within the telcos control. And because we [telcos] know the metrics and we have the individual balances and what they have to get, we go ahead and pay the customers from the account,” he explained.

Edmond Bawuah, Head of Cooperate at Airtel Ghana also revealed that the central bank has given guidelines as to how much money the banks can release to the telcos. He noted that the central bank expects the telcos to pay interest between 1.5 to 7%.

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“The central bank has given guidelines as to how much the banks are required to pay the telcos and of course we will intend make those payments to our customers. The central bank expects the payment will be made between 1.5% to 7% of the flows that is being held in the trust and at least 80% of that will be passed onto customers,” he said.

Data available from the central bank notes that total interest accrued on the float [deposit] as at June 2016 was GH₵15.19million.

In addition, mobile money transactions in the country reached a total of GHC679.17 million.

This figure represents a 20% growth for the mid-year figure, compared to the GHC547.96 million recorded for the end of 2015.

The mobile money subscribers are entitled to at least GH₵12.15million representing 80% of the total float balances that will be distributed to mobile money subscribers in line with Paragraph 10(5) of the E-Money Issuers Guidelines (2015).

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