A consumer protection advocacy group has warned that Mobile Money Fintech Limited’s introduction of a wallet-to-bank charge breached fundamental principles of fair notice and corporate duty of care, even as the Bank of Ghana (BoG) moved swiftly to suspend the planned fee pending consultations.
CUTS International, a public policy and consumer rights organisation, said its concerns reach beyond the 0.75 percent charge itself and centre on the manner in which Mobile Money Fintech Limited (MMFL), which controls approximately 75 percent of Ghana’s mobile money market, communicated the fee to millions of users who depend on the platform for daily financial transactions. The BoG had directed MMFL to suspend implementation of the charge pending further engagement.
Appiah Kusi Adomako, West African Regional Director of CUTS International, said that level of market concentration carries obligations that MMFL failed to honour. While competition law does not prohibit a company from becoming dominant, he argued, it does prohibit the abuse of that dominance, particularly where the market power is sufficient to impose charges without facing meaningful customer flight. In Ghana’s mobile money market, where MMFL’s service is deeply embedded in household and business financial lives, that condition applies clearly.
The organisation’s sharpest criticism was directed at the notice period. MMFL gave customers less than one week’s warning before the charge was due to take effect, a timeline CUTS described as wholly inadequate.
Adomako called the short notice period “a textbook example of the kind of conduct that constitutes an abuse of dominance.”
CUTS argued that meaningful consumer protection requires adequate time for users to understand a change, evaluate its impact on their finances and make a genuine choice about whether to stay with a provider or seek alternatives. In theory, dissatisfied customers could migrate to competing platforms such as Telecel Cash or AT Money. In practice, a seven-day window is insufficient for most consumers and businesses to rearrange supplier relationships, merchant payment arrangements and embedded transaction habits built around a single platform.
Beyond competition law, CUTS raised the wider question of corporate duty of care in digital finance. As mobile money platforms increasingly function as financial infrastructure rather than ordinary telecommunications products, the organisation argued that dominant operators must apply greater caution and transparency when introducing changes that directly affect millions of livelihoods.
The issue surfaced shortly after MMFL completed its structural separation from Scancom PLC (MTN Ghana), becoming a standalone fintech entity as of March 31, 2026, following regulatory approval under the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019.
CUTS said the suspension of the charge by the BoG offers a temporary halt but leaves the deeper question of how Ghana regulates the intersection of digital finance innovation, corporate pricing power and consumer rights unanswered.
