Investigating Challenges of Mobile Money usage in the Central Business District of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Adum- Ghana

Abstract

A descriptive cross-sectional design approach was deployed using a structured questionnaire underpinning the research objective to collect data from mobile money users and non-users within the Business District Centre of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Adum. The purposive random selection technique was used to choose a sample size of 59. This study seeks to investigate the challenges encountered by patrons of mobile money and examine their behaviour and attitudes towards the usage of mobile money transactions. The study identified seven (7) challenges, namely, financial, security, privacy, performance, time, convenience, and psychological, with performance, security, and privacy challenges being the most prevalent. The low transaction limits due to inadequate constant liquidity flow (cash and e-float) by agents affect consumers who wish to transact more than being offered; unwarranted delays experienced by customers and merchants due to incomplete payment process are some of the causative challenges of mobile money transaction; and invasion of privacy and defamation are among major. Fraudsters use the fear and anxiety of customers’ personal details in the hands of a third party, especially when the mobile money accounts are linked to clients’ bank accounts. The effect of inconvenience and delays in transactions are pointers to a duplicated transaction. It is recommended that service charges be lowered to their minimum rates, ensure a reliable mobile money system for consumers through system upgrades, and service providers ensure that personal details remain private to avoid consumer-driven fraud by inadvertently making pin codes known to third parties. Keywords: Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), Mobile Money, Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the Diffusion of Innovation Theory.