Mr Eli Hini, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Mobile Money Limited (MML) at MTN has encouraged Ghanaians to effectively utilise the country's digital payment platforms for full socio-economic benefits.

He said with the emergence of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the country's digital markets had widened, with increasing acceptance of e-commerce, digital payments expected to grow.

Speaking at the launch of the 2021 MTN MoMo Month in Accra on Thursday, Mr Hini said Ghanaians must, therefore, take advantage of the enormous potential of the sector to facilitate economic transformation.

"Today, with the emergence of AfCFTA our markets have been widened and with the increasing acceptance of e-commerce, digital payments are expected to grow. We believe that if our payment platforms are fully utilised the socio economic benefits will be enormous," he said.

The MoMo Month which is held annually in August is expected to reward thousands of its loyal customers as well as mobile money agents, retailers and merchants.

Mr Hini said for the past nine years, the company had dedicated the month of August to create awareness and educate customers about the benefits of MoMo, adding that since its inception nearly a decade ago, the MoMo month had contributed immensely to the significant achievements chalked by the company.

This, he said, included 17 million registered subscribers, 19 partner banks, more than 200,000 agents and over 7.5 billion transactions.

He noted that the company had also taken a number of measures including collaborating with other Mobile Network Operatives and the Telecom Chamber, to protect customers against mobile money fraud.

That, he added, had significantly reduced fraud incidences by closing the gaps to accessing the sim card and also blocking the IMEI of phones used in undertaking fraudulent activities.

He encouraged Ghanaians, particularly MTN subscribers to be vigilant and report any fraudulent activities to the company to enable it take punitive measures against perpetuators and make the practice unattractive.

Mr Hini also expressed MTN's commitment to support government's GHQR to facilitate easy payments for goods and services.

"For us at MML, we are working towards a period where MoMo can and will be accepted for all forms of payments including paying for trotro and taxi fare, payment of tolls, and many more.

We continue to work with partners who connect to our platforms to receive payments for their goods and services using the Merchant ID option. To this end we fully support the governments GHQR," he added.

The theme for this year's MoMo Month is: "Consolidating Digital Payment for Economic Transformation."

Madam Ruth Baddoo, Senior Manager, Operations and Service Delivery at MTN, said the COVID-19 pandemic had accelerated the upgrade and use of e-payment across all channels and sectors over the past years.

She noted that more than 80 percent of MTN customers today, use mobile money and assured that MML would continue to create awareness on the need to adopt digital payment, to expand the digital financial service industry.

Mr Abdul-Majeed Rufai, Senior Manager, Commercial at MTN, said the company had lined up events including engaging communities, market women as well as associations on the need to adopt MoMo as payment platforms to consolidate the gains.

Other events include stakeholder forum to collaborate to promote digitize payments in Ghana, customers, agents, merchants, akwaaba and mobile agents promo.

The MTN Mobile Money Month was introduced in 2012 to deepen awareness among Ghanaians on the MTN Mobile Money service.