Sub-regional Workshop on Mobile Money in West Africa

The mobile money financial services industry is now expanding rapidly in the West African sub-region after its phenomenal growth in East Africa. Experiences of East and Southern African countries confirm that mobile money presents a unique opportunity to encourage and enhance financial inclusion, formalise the informal sector and tap into the domestic savings in rural areas, with a potential to raise economic growth.

This workshop, jointly organised and supported by the Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) and the International Growth Centre (IGC) offices in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ghana, brought together government and private sector representatives from Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, and built on previous SSA meetings over the past two years in Mozambique and Senegal. Through this workshop, BSI and other central banks in the region  took the next step towards advancing their new guidelines and looked at new areas such as credit services through mobile money. Key emerging policy areas were identified for workshop sessions to address and the IGC identified relevant economic questions that could be addressed by the SSA experience.

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