Ghana’s mobile money economy has reached a decisive stage. What began as a convenient way to send and receive small amounts has become national infrastructure for payments, savings, commerce and short-term credit.
Households pay school fees and utility bills through mobile wallets, traders receive daily sales proceeds, and families depend on instant transfers during emergencies.
The strength of this system is speed and accessibility. Its weakness is that criminals can exploit stolen identities, compromised SIM cards, false loan applications, weak verification systems and careless disclosure of financial information.
An insightful conversation with Dr Bismark Maka, an analytical expert in digital technology, revealed that MTN Ghana’s warning that borrowers can no longer evade mobile money loan obligations by discarding their SIM cards marks an important turning point.
The Ghana Card used to register a mobile account provides a more permanent identity reference.
A customer may change a telephone number, replace a SIM card or move to another network, but the individual’s verified identity, borrowing history and credit obligations should remain traceable.
MTN Ghana stated on 2 August 2026 that customers who discarded SIM cards after obtaining mobile money loans could be detected when registering another number because their Ghana Card details were already within the service system.
The debt therefore belongs to the borrower, not to the SIM card.
Mobile money has become national infrastructure
Bank of Ghana data released in July 2026 showed that mobile money transaction value reached approximately GH¢492.9 billion in June 2026, compared with GH¢323.2 billion in June 2025. Registered accounts rose to about 84.6 million, active accounts stood at about 26.4 million and wallet balances reached approximately GH¢40 billion. (Bank of Ghana)
At this scale, identity protection is an economic priority. A security weakness can disrupt household consumption, business cash flow, school payments, medical expenditure and national commerce.
Responsibility must therefore be shared among users, telecommunications companies, financial institutions, technology providers and regulators.
The central question is no longer whether Ghana should embrace mobile money.
The question is how the country can preserve its convenience while preventing identity theft, fraudulent borrowing and unauthorised transactions.
From SIM identity to credit accountability
Digital lenders have traditionally assessed customers through mobile numbers, wallet activity, airtime usage, transaction frequency and repayment behaviour.
This expanded credit access to borrowers without land, formal salaries or conventional bank statements.
The weakness was the mistaken belief that changing a SIM card could erase a debt.
The Bank of Ghana warned in September 2022 that mobile money loan information was held by licensed credit bureaus and that non-repayment could damage a borrower’s credit report and future access to finance.
Ghana Card-based identity can now produce four important gains.
Portable credit history
A customer’s repayment record can follow the individual across telephone numbers, networks and licensed lenders. Responsible borrowers can gradually build positive financial reputations.
Reduced strategic default
A new SIM card should not create a new financial identity or erase an existing credit obligation.
Improved affordability assessment
Lenders can identify existing obligations before granting additional credit, thereby reducing multiple borrowing and excessive household debt.
Fairer credit pricing
Responsible customers should not continually carry the financial cost of deliberate defaulters through excessive interest rates and charges.
- Fraud is following the money
The Bank of Ghana’s 2025 Fraud Report recorded 24,778 reported cases across banks, specialised deposit-taking institutions and payment service providers, compared with 16,733 cases in 2024.
Payment service providers accounted for most reported incidents, confirming that criminals are increasingly following consumers into digital payment channels. (Bank of Ghana)
Fraud is no longer limited to the theft of a mobile money personal identification number.
It may involve a false Ghana Card, unauthorised SIM registration, fraudulent SIM replacement, compromised biometric information, a stolen handset, social engineering or a digital loan obtained in another person’s name.
Identity linkage can reduce anonymity, but it can also concentrate risk.
When one identity becomes the common reference across telecommunications, banking, public services and credit, a breach can affect several parts of a person’s life simultaneously.
An innocent person whose identity is stolen could face unauthorised debts, blocked accounts, damaged credit records and difficulties accessing future financial services.
Mandatory biometric Ghana card verification
The most important new identity protection initiative is the National Identity Register Amendment Regulations, 2026, known as L.I. 2523.
The regulations were signed on 27 March 2026, gazetted on the same day and came into force on 9 June 2026.
They require real-time biometric verification against the National Identification Authority database.
Visual inspection of the Ghana Card is no longer sufficient. Organisations must not rely merely on photocopying, scanning or retaining copies of the card for ordinary identity verification, except where permitted by law.
Where biometric verification is available, customers do not need to present the physical Ghana Card.
This represents a major security improvement. A physical card or photocopy can be forged, altered, stolen or presented by an impostor.
Real time biometric verification instead determines whether the person attempting the transaction matches the identity stored within the national database.
Businesses, financial institutions, government agencies, telecommunications companies and digital lenders are therefore required to connect to the NIA Identity Verification System Platform.
The NIA had previously warned that physical inspection and photocopying alone had contributed to the circulation and use of fake Ghana Cards.
Institutions relying only on visual checks expose themselves and their customers to identity theft, financial loss and reputational damage.
Ghana’s new SIM security architecture
The National Communications Authority and the National Identification Authority are developing a new number registration system because biometric data from the previous exercise were not always fully validated against the NIA database.
According to the NCA, this weakness created opportunities for false identities, SIM swap fraud and other forms of cybercrime.
The new framework introduces six important protections.
Real-time biometric SIM verification
A mobile number will be activated only after the subscriber’s biometric information has been successfully validated against the NIA database. This should make it more difficult to register SIM cards with stolen or invented identities.
A Designated primary number
Each subscriber will select a primary number that receives one time passwords whenever another number is being registered against the same Ghana Card.
This provides an early warning when an agent, criminal or unauthorised third party attempts to register a number without the knowledge of the rightful identity holder.
Remote SIM delinking
Subscribers will be able to remove numbers wrongly or fraudulently linked to their identities.
This is essential because discovering an unknown SIM is not enough.
Customers must have a rapid and accessible means of disabling the fraudulent connection before it is used to obtain loans or commit financial crimes.
Device verification through the CEIR
The Central Equipment Identity Register will use the unique IMEI numbers of mobile devices to help block stolen phones, detect counterfeit devices and identify handsets associated with fraudulent activities.
This means that security controls can extend beyond the SIM card to the device used for the transaction.
Secure self-registration
The proposed platform supports self-registration for both physical SIM cards and electronic SIMs while retaining biometric validation.
This can reduce unnecessary dependence on agents, although providers must maintain strong controls against remote impersonation and fraudulent biometric capture.
Stronger regulation of digital lenders
Identity security must apply to lenders as firmly as it applies to borrowers.
In July 2026, the Bank of Ghana designated digital credit as a regulated non-bank financial service and published a directive and licensing requirements for providers.
The measures are intended to bring digital lenders under clearer regulatory supervision.
The Bank also warned on 27 July 2026 about the continued operation of unlicensed mobile application lenders.
Consumers should deal only with approved providers because unlicensed operators may expose borrowers to unlawful data access, abusive recovery methods and inadequate complaint procedures.
Licensed lenders should be required to:
- Verify customer identities through the official NIA platform.
- Disclose the principal, interest, fees and total cost of credit.
- Assess the borrower’s repayment capacity.
- Protect customer and biometric information.
- Report accurately to licensed credit bureaus.
- Investigate disputed or fraudulent loans quickly.
- Correct inaccurate credit information without unnecessary delay.
Impact on households
For households, the reforms provide both protection and responsibility.
Traders, farmers, workers and young entrepreneurs can build formal credit histories without traditional collateral.
Responsible repayment may improve future access to finance.
A stolen identity, however, can produce fraudulent debts, blocked services and reputational damage.
Customers therefore need accessible mechanisms to freeze wallets, dispute loans, correct credit records and remove unauthorised SIM registrations.
Deliberate default should have consequences, but illness, delayed salaries, business losses and genuine fraud disputes require restructuring and investigation rather than intimidation.
Conclusion
Ghana’s movement from SIM-based lending towards Ghana Card-linked accountability is necessary.
A borrower should not escape a legitimate debt by discarding a SIM card.
Equally, an innocent citizen should not inherit a fraudulent debt because a criminal copied a Ghana Card or captured a telephone number.
The emerging identity protection framework is stronger because it combines mandatory biometric verification, the NIA Identity Verification System Platform, primary number alerts, remote SIM delinking, device verification, digital lender licensing, encryption and data minimisation.
The real measure of success will be whether every legitimate user can borrow, save, pay and trade with confidence that both money and identity are protected.
Ghana needs a trusted digital economy in which accountability follows the borrower, fraud follows the criminal and protection follows the citizen.
By PROF. SAMUEL LARTEY
www.pefghana.org
