E-Money in Ghana: A Case Study

Samuel Senyo Okae () and Eugene Yarboi Mensah ()
Additional contact information
Samuel Senyo Okae: Bank of Ghana
Eugene Yarboi Mensah: Ghana Deposit Protection Corporation

No 9, IADI Fintech Briefs from International Association of Deposit Insurers

Abstract: The usage of electronic money (e-money) for transactions has grown across Ghana and has the potential to revolutionise the cash-dominant economy to become cashless. Propelling this growth are mobile money operators (MMOs), which have developed to offer a specific type of e-money, termed mobile money (MM). With the increased use of mobile-money services and growth in the payment systems sector each day, it is imperative for Ghana to design a holistic approach to the use of e-money as well as consider its operationalisation of the coverage by the deposit insurer. The Ghana Payment Systems Act, 2019 (Act 987) sets out the rules for the issuance of e-money within Ghana and the supervision of the business of e-money institutions (EMIs), which includes MMOs. There are growing concerns about safeguarding client funds held by EMIs worldwide. In Ghana, client funds held by EMIs must be placed in custodial accounts at banks. As a result, it has become necessary for Ghana's deposit insurance system to consider how to protect these funds. Funds backing the electronic value belonging to customers of MMOs are kept in a custodian account which resides with banks and hence the need for these funds to be protected in case of a bank failure is being discussed. This brief describes the distinctions between deposits and e-money and provides a description of the key features of e-money in the Ghanaian context. It discusses the factors influencing the protection of e-money wallets and the float (defined as the cash equivalent of outstanding electronic money liabilities of an electronic money issuer with partner banks) kept with commercial banks. Finally, options to be considered for the possible protection of these wallets in case of bank liquidation are presented.

Keywords: deposit insurance; bank resolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G21 G33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-ban, nep-mfd, nep-mon and nep-pay
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.iadi.org/en/assets/File/Papers/Fintech ... rief%209%20final.pdf Final version (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:awl:finbri:9

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IADI Fintech Briefs from International Association of Deposit Insurers Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by IADI Research Unit ().