MTN MoMo provides payment platform to cocoa and poultry industries

MTN Mobile Money Limited has initiated steps to provide easy payment platforms for both the cocoa and poultry industries in the country.

General Manager for MTN Ghana Mobile Money Limited, Eli Hini, speaking virtually with journalists, said MTN Mobile Money is currently working with cocoa processing companies to buy and pay farmers directly without using clerks or agents.

He explained that this platform is more secured and farmers are assured payment without any excuses and also provides easy and safe access to the funds by the farmers.

With regard to the poultry industry, Hini explained that the service is to help the poultry farmers buy and pay for inputs from suppliers

This platform will bring both the suppliers and the farmers together for easy and safe transactions”, he asserted.

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This initiative forms part of the company’s digitization of agricultural value chains for cocoa farmers in cocoa growing communities by digitizing cocoa farmer identifications (IDs) and digitizing the process of procurement and payment of their crops, is being undertaken alongside counter-fraud measures and risk management practices to ensure effective sustainability of the project.

MTN Ghana, with technical support from the Global System Mobile Association (GSMA), has invested in supporting improvements in cocoa farmers’ livelihoods and cocoa growing communities through the use of the MTN Mobile Money.

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The project, Businessweekghana understands, offers a unique opportunity for cocoa farmers to transition from cash to digital payments with the primary focus of making the value proposition for cocoa farmers stronger.

So far, a significant number of cocoa farmers in the project implementation communities have been largely digitized and have access to more financial transactions via the MTN mobile money which currently was improving their livelihoods and productivity.

He stated that the project with leadership from MTN Ghana has demonstrated the widespread adoption of mobile technology by farmers and a willingness to use mobile technology in improving cocoa farming practices.

MTN Mobile Money is currently the overwhelming market leader, but Eli Hini said it has not always been so, explaining that for the first five years of its operation, MTN MoMo never made any profits and yet the leadership of the company believed in the prospects and kept investing in it.

In fact for the first five years we kept making losses but because of the foresight of the leadership at MTN they kept pushing money into it and today we are here,” he said.

Asked if MTN Mobile Money was working towards becoming a fully-fledged bank, Eli Hini said that is not yet on the table, adding that currently they are focused on improving cashless transactions and ensuring the greater majority of Ghanaian adopt electronic transaction as a first choice over cash.

He said MTN and mobile money in general is here to complement banks and not to compete with them, adding that the over 180,000 mobile money merchants are reaching the over 70% of Ghanaians who don’t have bank accounts or do not have banks in their communities with banking services.

This is complementary to banking and we intend to keep doing more of that to ensure financial inclusion,” he said.