With mobile phone penetration rate well over 90 percent and expected to reach 100 percent by 2013, the lack of awareness of mobile money among Ghanaians and the low adoption rate of the product is quite thought provoking. Ghana, a developing country with economic conditions similar to Kenya, is yet to realize the full potential of mobile money in meeting the financial needs of those who currently feel socially excluded from the financial discourse. 

 

Researchers and mobile money service providers alike are dumbfounded with the dismal adoption rates in Ghana given the success stories of MPESA in Kenya, and the diverse potential benefits mobile money has to offer the poor and consumers at large. One wonders if an intensified, concerted effort (beyond Radio/TV advertisements and Flyers) that engenders dialogue and hands-on activities would do a better job at creating awareness to help improve uptake in Ghana—hence a 2-day Mobile Money conference organized under the theme; ‘Reaching the Unreached: Mobile Money Uptake in Ghana.’

 

The conference is aimed at exploring the role of retail agents in the provision of mobile money services in Ghana and identifying the hindrances to the uptake of mobile money services among the rural and urban poor in Ghana. It would thus create a forum for retail agents, mobile money service providers, regulators, policy makers, researchers, community leaders/organizers and consumers to interact and deliberate on the impediments to the adoption of mobile payment systems and strategies to enhance usage. 

 

Call for papers available here.

 

See the conference program here.