Abstract:
For many years, efforts to make financial products and services accessible and affordable
to all individuals and businesses, regardless of their personal net worth or company size,
(financial inclusion) was a major challenge, globally, due to the high costs involved. In
light of this, mobile banking service that allows users to store and transfer money through
their mobile phones, has increased the appetite for mobile financial service deployments,
especially in developing countries. Mobile money, which is a type of mobile banking, has
become extremely popular around the world and most especially in countries where most
of its population do not use banks. However, as more businesses and customers launch
their money into cyberspace, opportunities for 21st century, tech-savvy thieves also
increase. With continuous losses to fraud indicating that fraud is an issue which requires
continuous attention, it is important to explore mobile money fraud. This work explored
mobile money fraud in the Kasoa Township. Using mixed method approach and stratified
and purposive sampling technique, a total of 394 respondents were involved in the study.
Data collected were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results from the study
revealed that, anonymous calls from fraudsters were the most prevalent type of mobile
money fraud. Also, majority of the respondent said they trusted the fraudster as their
reason of being defrauded while those who could not be defrauded stated awareness as
their reason. Furthermore, loss of customer and business trust, destroying business
relationships, clean-up cost, collapse of business, market distortion were major effects of
mobile money fraud on mobile money operations. Based on the outcome of the study, it
was recommended that; Both merchants and individual subscribers in Kasoa are
encouraged to save contact of their Mobile Network Operators on their phones in order to
detect fake calls claiming to have come from the Service Provider’s Office to help curb
anonymous call related fraud in Kasoa. In addition, mobile money operators/service
providers need to intensify customer awareness on mobile money fraud by using local
language such as Fante, Ewe, Nzema, Hausa and Ga, with the help of local information
centres in the Kasoa Township.
Description:
A thesis in the Department of Social Studies Education, Faculty of Social Sciences Education, Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree of Master of Philosophy (Social Studies Education) in the University of Education, Winneba
July, 2022