Volumes and values of Mobile Money merchant payments have dropped significantly since the re-introduction of charges for merchants which have often been passed on to clients, Central Bank statistics show.

Mobile Money Rwanda on September 1 reintroduced a charge for merchants, pricing it at 0.5 per cent commission, on payment received through the popular payment mode.

The telco defended the move arguing that the fee was previously at 1 per cent in the pre-covid-19 period before it was waived as part of efforts to promote uptake of digital payment services to help reduce chances of Covid-19 transition.

According to data from the Central Bank, the weekly values of merchant payments in the last week of August before introduction of the fees stood at over Rwf5.6bn, which has since dropped to about Rwf2.5bn

"When the fees were introduced, there was a drop to about Rwf3.1B, in the week immediately after and stabilized at around Rwf 2.5B as at the end of October. In terms of the number of transactions, it remained more or less unchanged at around 300,000 transactions per week,” Peace Uwase, the Director-General of the Financial Stability at the Central Bank said.

The number of merchants dropped from over 25,000 in August to 22,297 in October, the statistics further show,

The drop was attributed to the re-introduction of fees.

Central Bank Governor John Rwangombwa said that the government is set to introduce an awareness campaign on digital payments aimed at increasing the general public’s insights on digital payments which could lead to recovery of merchant payments over time.  

Uwase however noted that all was not lost as increasingly clients have several payment options beyond mobile money as a mode of payment including bank transfers, card payments among others.

The New Times understands that Mobile Money Rwanda Ltd has increased the number of support staff to increase awareness and respond to customers' concerns and queries on the subject.

Overall, digital payments values and volumes grew as of September 2021 compared to September 2020. Active mobile payment subscribers increased by 12.3 per cent between September 2020 and September 2021 while the number of mobile payment transactions increased to 237M.