Ghana's Mobile Money Users and Agents Are Under Siege: It's Time for Telcos to Step Up Their Cybersecurity Game

Ghana's mobile money revolution has reshaped the financial landscape. In 2024 alone, mobile money

transactions reached an unprecedented GH₵3.0192 trillion, marking a 57.9% increase from 2023's GH₵1.912 trillion. In 2023, there were an average of 18.6 million mobile money transactions per day, a 34.4% increase from the previous year. At the heart of this growth are 73 million registered user accounts albeit 24 million of them being active and over 896,000 mobile money agents across the country though 411,000 remains active, many of whom operate as small private businesses. While they are the lifeblood of this financial ecosystem, they are also its most vulnerable players.

Despite earning about only 40% of service charges (with telecom companies retaining 60%), these agents bear the brunt of cyber fraud, armed robbery, and other operational risks. The telcos MTN Ghana (which holds over 60% of the market), Telecel (formerly Vodafone), and AirtelTigo have failed to make adequate cybersecurity investments or establish real-time response teams. This glaring negligence has turned mobile money agents and customers into easy targets for fraudsters and criminals. The Telcos from all indications do not simply care!

A Broken System: Fraudsters Exploit Weak Links with Ease

When agents or customers fall victim to fraud, their calls to telco call centers are often met with vague assurances: "Our fraud team will investigate." Yet, no follow-up occurs, no transactions are reversed, and the same fraudsters continue to scam people using the same phone numbers. Even when numbers are reported multiple times, they are neither flagged nor blocked. Victims are left helpless, and the perpetrators walk free, continuing to amass greater numbers of victims they have made.

To make matters worse, fraudsters often transfer stolen money across telco networks, making it harder for any one telco to intervene. Victims are told the money is "no longer in our system" as it has been moved to another network. This loophole emboldens scammers to act quickly and without fear of consequences.

Internal Complicity: When the Threat Comes from Within

Shockingly, some mobile money thefts involve insiders within the telecom companies. How does a random street thief gain access to your PIN and successfully withdraw funds after stealing your phone? These breaches suggest a level of internal collusion that telcos have yet to publicly address or take responsibility for. The shortcodes to report fraud are not only ineffective, but largely symbolic.

Another rising threat is the proliferation of fake online vendors. Scammers pose as sellers of wigs, clothing or gadgets on digital platforms like jiji, tiktok and other social media platforms, receive mobile money payments, and then vanish thereafter, blocking the customer and continuing their schemes with impunity. Despite numerous reports against these receiving numbers, telcos do nothing! Police involvement is another dead end, as officers demand documents from telcos who in turn offer conflicting information or no cooperation at all.

App Vulnerabilities: When Technology Fails the User

Some users of mobile money apps have reported being debited without entering their PIN or giving any form of authorization. These unexplained deductions raise concerns about potential security vulnerabilities in the apps themselves. Whether due to malware, weak authentication protocols, API vulnerabilities or unpatched software bugs, this undermines public confidence in the safety of mobile transactions. Telcos must audit and harden these applications, leverage on bounty hunting programs in order for penetration testers and security researches to find vulnerabilities in the app way ahead of time and get it fixed before malicious actors can leverage on them.

Armed Robbery: When Risks Turn Deadly

Beyond digital theft, the threat to mobile money agents is physical and fatal. Over 100 mobile money agents have been gunned down and robbed of their business cash in the past decade. These are not just financial losses; they are lives lost. Yet, telcos have done little to provide security measures or pursue justice for these crimes.

There's no rapid response collaboration with law enforcement, and no concerted effort to prosecute attackers. This lack of consequence emboldens more criminals.

Weak Awareness Campaigns: The Silence Is Deafening

For a nation with close to 900,000 registered mobile money agent accounts and 24 millions of active user accounts, the level of cybersecurity awareness is appallingly low. Telcos have done little in terms of educating the public. Ads on national television, radio, or digital platforms like TikTok and Facebook are nearly non- existent. Even when they exist, they are sporadic and not in local languages.

Daily cybersecurity tips and fraud warnings in English, Twi, Ewe, Hausa, and other local languages should be mandatory across media platforms. Awareness saves lives and livelihoods.

The Mobile Money Advocacy Group Ghana (MoMAG) was created to protect and unify agents, promote security, and advocate for their welfare. Unfortunately, it has not done enough in terms of awareness and training of its members against frauds and even more miserably when it comes to post incidence response to fraud and scams. They seems not to have realized how easy it is to track these fraudsters should telcos and the police show interest as they should. Fraudsters often operate within the same city, town or district, defrauding multiple agents in a matter of days. Some agents even capture their photos but fail to share them with peers.

Most of them also fail to share the modus operandi used by the fraudster, detailing the steps and exactly how they got defrauded to colleague mobile money agents so that they would not fall for the same trap.

Had MoMAG established a real-time alert platform or even simple WhatsApp or Telegram security groups per region, many of these fraudsters would have been stopped. The absence of collaboration among agents has given fraudsters the upper hand. They have shown little interest and urgency in tracking down and identifying fraudsters and ensuring they face the law to serve as a deterrent to others.

What Telcos and Stakeholders Must Do

1. Establish a Real-Time Cybersecurity and Fraud Response Team

Telcos must set up a dedicated Security Operations Center (SOC) that works around the clock. The SOC must have the authority to temporarily freeze suspicious transactions and or accounts, flag repeat offenders, and reverse reported fraudulent transactions should they come to such a conclusion. It should be staffed with enough workers to curtail.

2. Temporary Freezes and Red Flags

If a number or account has been reported multiple times for fraud, it should be temporarily suspended until the owner visits a telco office for investigation. Likewise, if the money is moved within the same telco network, a temporary block should be placed on the receiving wallet pending a comprehensive review.

3. Cross-Telco Collaboration and Traceability

To address inter-network fraud, telcos must collaborate. A shared fraud-tracking system should allow telcos to

trace funds across networks and reverse or freeze transactions if fraud is suspected.

There must be systems in place to prevent false fraud reporting. Customers who lodge false fraud complaints after receiving legitimate goods or services should be blacklisted and prosecuted. Vendors must be allowed to present delivery evidence.

5. Comprehensive Awareness Campaigns

Telcos must commit to daily broadcasts of fraud awareness tips in all major local languages on national television, radio, print media and digital platforms. Security tips should also be pushed via SMS, social media, and mobile money platforms in a habitual manner.

6. Prosecutions and Public Deterrents

Fraudsters and armed robbers must be pursued and prosecuted vigorously. Telcos, in collaboration with the police must use call records and signal pings to track down criminals. The soaring numbers of momo fraudsters in the system is because they figured out how unconcerned the Telcos and the police are hence no consequences for their horrible actions.

8. Regulatory Lapses: A Crisis of Enforcement

Comprehensive regulations such as the National Communications Authority’s guidelines on mobile money operations and the Bank of Ghana's Cyber and Information Security Directive exist on paper—but are poorly enforced. This weak implementation creates a permissive environment where telecom providers are not compelled to take serious cybersecurity actions. Had these frameworks been effectively monitored and enforced, the telcos would have no choice but to implement robust fraud mitigation systems that protect users and agents alike. The regulatory vacuum is costing Ghanaians both money and lives

9. Monthly Transparency Reports

Telcos must publish monthly data on the number of fraud complaints received, actions taken, numbers blocked, transactions reversed, and arrests made.

MoMAG and other mobile money agent associations/groups/unions should build a platform for agents to share alerts, fraud photos, and tips in real-time. Regional agent coordinators should be appointed to manage this network, supported by telcos and regulators.

Final Thoughts: Common Sense Should Not Be a Luxury

The current state of affairs reflects one thing clearly: the telcos do not care enough. The National Communications Authority and the Bank of Ghana has also failed to enforce basic cybersecurity standards and agent protection protocols. Mobile money agents and users are the backbone of Ghana’s digital financial growth. Their lives and investments should not be treated as disposable.

Ghana deserves better. Its people deserve safety. And its telcos must be held to a higher standard.

Author: Isshak Awal Mohammed BSc/MSc IT .

MSc IT Security candidate, Offenburg University , Germany.