Mobile Money Fintech Ltd CEO calls for greater financial inclusion and stronger fraud protection in Ghana’s fintech sector

By:   Nana Appiah Acquaye

The Chief Executive Officer of Mobile Money Fintech Limited, Haruna Shaibu, has called for greater financial inclusion, stronger fraud protection and deeper collaboration across Ghana's financial Technology ecosystem, highlighting the need to extend digital financial services to underserved communities and micro-enterprises.

Speaking at the Fintech Media Development Series in Accra, held under the theme “Understanding Fintech, Building Trust, Telling the Real Story”, Shaibu said the industry must focus not only on business growth but also on improving financial health, protecting customers and expanding opportunities for small businesses.

“Our mission remains very, very simple, but very entrenched in the Ghanaian financial ecosystem,” he said, noting that mobile money had evolved from a peripheral player into an important part of Ghana’s financial system.

Shaibu said micro-enterprises remained significantly excluded despite progress in expanding digital financial services. He called for greater efforts to bring small traders and entrepreneurs into the formal financial ecosystem, enabling them to grow their businesses, create employment and contribute to Ghana’s economic development.

He also highlighted opportunities to deepen mobile money usage, noting that global adoption figures showed a significant gap between registered accounts and active users. Citing GSMA reports, he said approximately 2.3 billion mobile money accounts existed globally, but only about 600 million were active, indicating room to increase the frequency and range of digital transactions.

Shaibu identified digital lending as an area of growing opportunity, particularly for individuals and micro-businesses that struggle to access financing. Digital transaction records, he said, can help providers assess customer behaviour and develop credit-scoring models that support access to loans. He added that the vast majority of the company’s customers repay their loans, while stressing the importance of addressing abuse of the system responsibly.

He also called for innovation in digital insurance, arguing that simply making traditional insurance products available through mobile money platforms was not enough to drive adoption. Instead, he said, providers should explore embedding insurance into customers’ everyday transactions to make coverage more accessible.

Fraud and cybersecurity were among the major challenges he highlighted. Shaibu recounted an attempted online scam involving a fake pizza order that sought to obtain his personal information and take over his WhatsApp account. Although device binding on his mobile money account provided an additional safeguard, he said the incident demonstrated how fraudsters exploit vulnerabilities across different digital platforms.

“The responsibility on all of us is to keep educating our customers and also build the necessary tools that will help us address some of these things in our ecosystem,” he said.

Shaibu said addressing fraud required coordinated action across financial services, telecommunications and other digital platforms, as attacks increasingly move between systems. He identified artificial intelligence as a potential tool for detecting and managing fraud in real time, provided organisations can collaborate and share relevant information.

Looking ahead, he identified several developments likely to shape the fintech industry, including artificial intelligence for fraud prevention, open finance, embedded financial services, digital assets and cross-border interoperability.

He said embedded finance could help customers access savings, investment and insurance products through routine transactions, reducing the barriers associated with purchasing such services separately. He also highlighted the potential of tokenised assets to allow people to invest in smaller fractions of assets such as gold, making investment opportunities more accessible.

On cross-border payments, Shaibu said reducing regulatory and operational friction could unlock opportunities for African businesses, particularly micro-enterprises seeking to benefit from regional trade and the African Continental Free Trade Area.

He cited Ghana’s mobile money ecosystem as an important example of digital financial infrastructure, reporting that the industry processed GH¢3.37 trillion in transactions as of August 2026. However, he cautioned that the figure represented total transactions across the ecosystem, including agent-to-agent transfers, merchant payments and consumer transactions, rather than money held in customer accounts.

He also said Mobile Money Fintech Limited processed more than 26 million transactions daily, making operational resilience, platform reliability and consumer protection essential. The company invested in a major platform upgrade in the previous year to expand capacity and support continued growth in Ghana’s fintech sector.

Shaibu said the company was committed to working with other fintech firms, dedicated electronic money issuers, industry associations and regulators to strengthen the ecosystem. He pointed to stakeholder engagements, the Bank of Ghana-led 3i Summit and the company’s group fintech summit as platforms for collaboration, innovation and expanding opportunities for Ghanaian businesses across African markets.

“Trust is the centerpiece of what we do,” he said, describing fraud prevention and cybersecurity as areas in which investment could not be compromised.

He called for collective efforts to build a secure, inclusive and sustainable financial ecosystem that supports customers, strengthens businesses and creates lasting economic opportunities for Ghanaians.