Ghana’s banks has lost over 10 million customers as of last quarter of 2017.
According to the Bank of Ghana, Mobile money accounts in the country grew to 22 million by the close of last quarter – September 2017 against a total of 11.6 million private customers bank accounts with various banking institutions in Ghana recorded in the same period: a staggering 47.2% gap.
It also pointed out that the balance on money being held by the banking partners supporting the mobile money service stood at GH¢1.8 billion by the close of the first of the year (monies believed to be mobilized from the informal sector).
In an interaction with stakeholders of the financial sector and the media during the 2017 Cyber Week- Director, Payment Systems Department of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr Settor Amediku, noted that this rapid growth of the mobile money system has made its users prime targets for cyber fraudsters in the country.
He therefore called on key stakeholders in the financial sector – particularly, the mobile money operators and vendors to provide the business public extensive education on how they could protect their accounts.
While this could be regarded as huge progress in some quarters of the business public, it indicates a growing threat to the survival of commercial banking institutions in the country who depend largely on ordinary customers to open accounts and grow their savings with them.
Hence, with an increasing proportion of the Ghanaian public more inclined to open and keep their funds on their mobile money wallets for convenience (regardless of the security risk), some banks would actually loose potential customers who may have contributed to their recapitalization and consequently, may go bankrupt.