- MobileMoney Bets on Digital Credit, Responsible Borrowing and Cybersecurity to Drive Growth
MobileMoney Fintech Limited is deepening its push into digital lending and broader financial services as Ghana’s mobile money ecosystem moves beyond basic payments, but Chief Executive Officer Shaibu Haruna says the sustainability of that expansion will increasingly depend on responsible borrowing, fraud prevention and customer trust.
Speaking at MTN Ghana’s “Facts Behind the Figures” engagement with the Ghana Stock Exchange in Accra on August 10, Mr Haruna said product innovation had become an important part of efforts to increase the usefulness of the company’s platform for individuals and businesses.
“A big piece of it is also around the product innovation that we brought in. We’ve brought in quite a number of loan services, and we’ve run some responsible borrowing campaigns to also get customers in the habit of, you know, taking loans and, of course, paying them on time and benefiting from a lot more services that we have on the platform,” he said.
The strategy illustrates how Ghana’s mobile money market is changing. Mobile wallets initially grew largely around person-to-person transfers, deposits, withdrawals and airtime purchases, but the transaction infrastructure built around those services is increasingly supporting credit and other financial products.
For MobileMoney, digital lending can deepen customer engagement and diversify financial-services revenues. For consumers and small businesses, particularly those outside conventional banking channels, digital credit can provide faster access to short-term financing without some of the collateral, paperwork and branch requirements associated with traditional lending.
That could be particularly important for micro and small businesses whose cash flows may be visible through digital transactions even when they lack the formal financial records typically required by banks. Transaction histories can potentially provide lenders with additional information for assessing repayment behaviour and creditworthiness.
But easier access to credit also creates a different set of risks. The speed with which digital loans can be obtained can make repeated borrowing easier, increasing the possibility that some customers use short-term credit to finance persistent expenditure rather than temporary liquidity needs.
That makes responsible borrowing a commercial issue as much as a consumer-protection one. Rapid loan growth is difficult to sustain if repayment performance deteriorates, meaning the long-term economics of digital lending depend on extending credit to customers capable of servicing it.
The company is therefore trying to link access to loans with repayment discipline. Better repayment behaviour can reduce credit losses while potentially allowing customers with stronger records to gain access to a wider range of financial services over time.
As the ecosystem becomes more sophisticated, however, Mr Haruna said cybersecurity is becoming fundamental to protecting the trust on which digital finance is built.
“For us, it’s a very important piece because the very foundation of the service offering that we have is based on trust,” he said. “Customers, for every transaction that a customer does, there is an underlying expectation that that transaction will be successful. And for us, we invest in ensuring that that happens.”
Trust carries direct economic value for a fintech operator. Customers may tolerate inconvenience in many consumer services, but financial transactions are different because users expect money to move accurately, securely and predictably.
A serious fraud incident or persistent security weakness can therefore impose costs beyond the money immediately lost. It can discourage transactions, weaken confidence in digital wallets and make customers more reluctant to adopt newer services such as lending, savings or other financial products.
Mr Haruna said MobileMoney was maintaining investment in the technology and security infrastructure supporting its platform. “So foundationally, we make sure that we have the best-in-class technology and cybersecurity elements built onto our platform, and we continuously invest in that piece,” he said.
The economics of cybersecurity are consequently changing. As more financial activity migrates onto digital platforms, security spending becomes less of a discretionary technology expense and more of a core investment required to preserve transaction volumes, customer confidence and the integrity of the wider business model.
Yet Mr Haruna said some of the most difficult vulnerabilities remain human rather than technological. Social engineering, where criminals manipulate customers into revealing information or authorising transactions, continues to expose weaknesses that cannot be solved simply by improving software.
“A lot of the incidents that we see happening around us is around, you know, customer vulnerabilities from, you know, unfortunately, from, you know, social engineering,” he said.
That is why the company’s security strategy extends beyond technology into public education. Mr Haruna said MobileMoney was using both media channels and community engagement to educate customers about protecting their wallets and recognising potential fraud risks.
“We are also anchoring that not just through the media, but also going on ground into the communities to engage customers on the need for them to safeguard their wallets. And we’ll continue to invest in that regard,” he said.
MobileMoney is simultaneously investing in technologies intended to detect and prevent fraud before transactions are completed. But Mr Haruna cautioned that technological safeguards cannot replace customer awareness.
“Whatever we invest in in terms of technology, it has to be supported by customer awareness about the risk and also what they have to do to safeguard the environment,” he said.
That balance is likely to become more important as Ghana’s fintech market enters its next phase. Digital credit can widen access to finance and create new revenue opportunities, but every additional service also increases the value stored and transacted through digital platforms and therefore the potential rewards for fraudsters.
For MobileMoney, the commercial opportunity is therefore inseparable from the responsibility to protect users. New products may drive growth, but their sustainability will depend on whether customers remain confident enough to borrow, transact and hold money within the digital ecosystem.
The next phase of Ghana’s fintech expansion may consequently be determined not simply by how quickly operators can innovate, but by whether they can protect the asset on which the entire digital-finance model ultimately depends: customer trust.
