The Bank of Ghana (Bog) has warned individuals who have acquired loans through mobile money platforms but have deliberately refused to register their SIM cards to enable them repay the loan.
The central bank says data on all mobile money loan customers are avilable in the data base of credit bureaus.
“As a result failure to repay such loans will attract negative repercussions on borrowers credit reports and could subsequently adversely affect any chance of obtaining loan facilities from other financial institutions and credit providers in future,” a statement by the Bank on Wednesday September 28 said.
Earlier, the Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful also warned them and further described their action as evil corruption.
It is recalled that Ningo Prampram Member of Parliament, Samuel Nartey George, said some customers who were yet to settle their debt decided not to pay and were waiting for their SIM to be blocked.
Speaking on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, July 30 in connection with the earlier plan to end the SIM re-registration by today, Sunday, July 31, Sam George said “You have Qwik Loan customers who have taken facilities and people are holding back and not wanting to pay, they are saying, okay, if you want to deactivate my SIM, let’s deactivate it.
“It is a disincentive for you to attract investors into the tech space. Don’t forget that this quick loan has created a space for a new cadre of small-scale businesses, people who take ¢500 or ¢1000 and turn it around and run businesses and pay these facilities back.
Press Release – Mobile Money Loan Defaulters pic.twitter.com/dbY8VqKEPD
— Bank of Ghana (@thebankofghana) September 28, 2022
“The Qwikloan, at times, has put food on the table of families, you can’t underestimate the value of this. Right now, industry players are going to be scared. How do I put money into an industry like OTT [Operate Over the Internet] when a policy directive one day could cost me millions or billions of dollars? These are the kind of policy incoherence we need to talk about.”
But addressing a press conference in Accra on Sunday, July 31, the Communications Minister said “I have also been informed that some people who have obtained Qwik Loans from their service providers have decided not to register those SIMs to avoid repaying the loans. That is evil corruption and you will be found out.”
