I will champion mobile money interoperability at the continental level – Bawumia

The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has said that he will champion mobile money interoperability on the African continent.

Dr Bawumia said he will be engaging the authorities in Nigeria to begin the inter-operability system.

Speaking at the opening of the Continental Interoperability Symposium in Accra, on July 4, Dr Bawumia said he is confident this will engender growth and improve on trade.

Available data from African Union indicate that Africa contributes over 70 percent of global money balance, while mobile money transactions among the adult population who received and transferred money accounted for 34 percent.

However, the need to have one currency has been a problem with Africa currently having 41 different currencies. This has affected the need to improve on business and trade on the continent.

At the opening of the Continental Interoperability Symposium, Dr Bawumia expressed concern about the lack of political will to roll out the single currency system.

He assured of his readiness to begin engaging African governments to adopt the mobile money interoperability, which he believes will address the challenges in money transaction.

“What will it take for our countries to be able to have mobile money interoperability, what convergence criteria are necessary? For me, these are not difficult because what we can do domestically, we can do internationally,” he said.

“I think we have the know-how, our fintech is very sharp and we can get this mobile money interoperability at the level of the continent, we should not wait for everybody to be ready before we proceed with mobile money interoperability at the continental level.”

“That will be a mistake it has to be done incrementally with the support of the central banks, I mean all the central banks should be members of process so that the settlement process can be done,” Dr Bawumia added.

The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison underscored the relevance of mobile money transaction to improve the economies of Africa.

“The concept of mobile money interoperability systems pose an enormous potential towards the establishment of a comprehensive cross border payment interoperability in the short to medium term,” he stated.

Executive Chairman of the African prosperity Network, Gabby Otchere Darko urged African leaders to consider mobile money inter-operability to improve trade.

“We in Ghana appreciate the value inter-operability has brought to both our social and economic lives since our government took that significant policy step a few years ago,” he noted.