Ghana’s mobile money interoperability will be delayed until next month (February 2018)
The Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) had previously planned November 2017 for the project but the deadline was missed with a new deadline set for next month.
This comes after missing the initial November 2017 deadline.
According to the CEO of GhIPSS, Mr. Archie Hesse, the reason for the delay is because of the inability of the telecom companies to hook unto the operating platform needed for the interoperability which was not initially envisaged.
“The web services side of the integration by the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) was completed in no time but when it came to their integration into the ISO service, they (telecom companies) struggled a bit. Though there was one MNO who was getting close after a long time. So when we realized that was the situation which we didn’t envisage before, we developed a web services ISO converter; so the MNOs no longer require that development, they can now ride on that development in our environment,” he explained.
“We have completed it, now the MNOs are connecting to it and testing begins that is why we are confident that we should be able to go live February ending; we should be able to launch it anytime in February. But the actual date will depend on our bosses,” he added.
What is Mobile Money Interoperability Platform
The mobile money interoperability platform will allow consumers to transfer money across all mobile networks with ease.
At the moment, mobile money transfers from one network to another are impeded because of the lack of a common platform and relatively high costs in transactions from one mobile network to another.
Initially, GhiPSS was not awarded the contract to build the Mobile Money Interoperability platform. It was first awarded to Sibton Switch. But because of controversy due to the contract sum (estimated at 4.6 billion cedis), the contract was cancelled and awarded to GhiPSS for an estimated 4 million cedis.
We’ll update you next month if the mobile networks can get their act together for the platform to go live and make mobile money transfers much easier for consumers.
Source: Ghanaweb
