Vodafone Ghana has announced that it is paying close to half a million Ghana cedis as interest payments to its customers. The amount is significant, especially as Vodafone Cash, the telecom company’s Mobile Money service, started operating less than a year ago in Ghana.
The decision to pay interest emanates from new guidelines on Dedicated Electronic Money Issuers (DEMI) from the Central Bank, which directs banks to pay interest on floats from mobile money platforms to telecom companies, out of which 80% is mandated as interest payment to mobile money customers.
The latest development means that customers will earn between 1.5% and 7% interest on their deposits. The payments are in two tranches – September 11, 2016 is designed for 2016 first quarter payments, whiles second quarter payments are due on September 18, 2016.
At the end of September 2016, Vodafone would have paid a total of GHS465,000 to over 280,000 customers across the country.
Commenting, Martison Obeng-Agyei, Head of Vodafone Cash said:
“This is a landmark move by the Central Bank for all mobile money operators in the country. It is very significant because customers can now have some dividend based on their level of transactions on the platform. For us at Vodafone, we are happy with the reception of our global money platform, which is evident from the number of customers we have acquired in less than a year of operations. We are confident that going forward, we will become very significant in this space in the country.”
Vodafone Cash was launched nine months ago and thrives on the M-PESA platform, which has a global reputation for delivering the best and convenient user experience and reliability.