Send Money To Ghana

Ways to Send Money to Ghana

Before we look at the proper ways of sending money to your family in Ghana, lets briefly mention the informal channels. At times, Ghanaians living abroad find it convenient to send money through friends travelling home or courier it to the risky and expensive.

When large amounts are involved, the risk becomes even higher. What if the friend, claims that the money was lost en route or the courier fails to take responsibility for lost cash? This is why sending through formal channels such as banks and money transfer service providers is the best option.

Inter-bank Transfers

You can transfer money from your bank to the recipient’s bank in Ghana. These transfers are generally safer and suitable for sending large amounts of money. However, most Ghanaians in the diaspora find interbank transfers unattractive for personal transfers.

If the recipient has a foreign currency account (FCY), you can send an Inward Transfer to them. This transfer moves through correspondent banks and until it gets credited into the FCY account. Banks such as Barclays Ghana, GCB Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank Ghana offer this service in Ghana.

One aspect to note is that the money comes in foreign currency, but you have to convert it to Ghanian cedi to access it. That is the law of the Gold Coast.

If the recipient has any other account other than an FCY account, you can transfer money directly from your bank account to their account through an Outward Transfer. All banks in Ghana offer this service.

The third option is ATM card transfer. This method requires that you maintain two cards such as a MasterCard and Visa. You have to leave one of the cards with your family members in Ghana and carry the other with you. To do the transfer, load the ATM card and your family will be able to withdraw in Ghana using the other card.

ATM card money transfers are not very common because the sender has no control over the amount of money the ‘recipient’ withdraws. Hacking also deals a blow to ATM card transfers.

Despite their reliability, banks are still unattractive to Ghanians sending money home. They offer low exchange rates, high charges, and require that you should have a bank account for you to transfer.

Money Transfer Services

The reliability, speed, and convenience of use have made the majority of Ghanaians abroad to choose money transfer companies (MTCs) over banks. Some of the providers with a wide network in Ghana are Western Union, MoneyGram, Ria, Vigo, and Express money send money.

Many of the MTCs in Ghana have agreements with financial institutions in the country to use their premises as payout locations. In places where banks and microfinance institutions are not available, money transfer service providers use independent agents.

For instance, GCB bank has partnered with Western Union, MoneyGram, Ria, Vigo, First African among other money transfer operators (MTOs). Eco bank has an agreement with MoneyGram, Ria and Western Union to allow its branches to serve as payout locations.

Sending money through MTOs is simple. You do not need a bank account to send money and the recipient doesn’t need one either. However, you’ll have to sign up for an account to make a transfer. It takes about 5  minutes to register for an account and probably another 10 minutes to pay for the transfer and send the money.

You can choose to pay for your transfer using a credit card, debit card or bank debit. The latter is the least expensive, but it takes time for the transfer to be complete. MTOs, allow you to send money in three ways.

• Bank Transfer- The money is transferred from the MTC to the recipient’s bank. This may take up to 3 days.
• Cash Pickup- The recipient receives the money in cash from any payout location near them. This transfer is instant.
• Mobile money – Afew providers have ‘direct to mobile’ capabilities. For instance, in 2018 MoneyGram partnered with ZeePay, a Ghanian digital financial services company, to offer its customers direct transfers to mobile. Western Union entered into a contractual agreement with MTN Ghana to use its network of about 14 million mobile wallets subscribers to send money directly to mobile phones.

Mobile Money Transfers

Ghana has the following mobile money transfer services:

ZeePay –Ghanaians in the diaspora can use ZeePay to send money to their families in Ghana direct to their mobile wallets, bank accounts, cash pickup locations, or as airtime top-up.

AirtelTigo Money –This is a joint venture between Millicom and Bharti Airtel offering its 10 million subscriber base an expanded network of mobile money services. Unlike Zeepay, AirtelTigo Money doesn’t do international transfers but has partnered with WorldRemit and Rocket Remit to allow Ghanaians abroad to send money to their families right into their mobile wallets.

Vodafone Mobile Money –Similar to AirtelTigo Money, this mobile money transfer service has partnered with Sendsika to give diaspora Ghanaians an opportunity to send money home to their recipients’ Vodafone Mobile Money wallets.

MTN MoMo –This is the largest mobile money transfer service in Ghana. Depending on the country you are sending from, you can use any of the MTOs they’ve partnered with. They are WorldRemit,  HomeSend, Horizon Exchange, Neteller, Azimo, Skrill, Transfer Galaxy, Wave, Small World, and Western Union. As long as the recipient has an MTN MoMo mobile account, you can send it directly to their phone from abroad.

What’s Needed to Send Money to Ghana

For you to send money to Ghana, you need the following information and documents:

• You government-issued ID
• The amount of money you want to send
• The name of the recipient
• The physical address and phone number of the recipient
• If you are sending directly to the recipient’s bank account, ensure you get the correct SWIFT code and the other bank details.

You can send online, or from a store. When sending money from a store, you may be asked to fill out a form to give more information on your transfer.