Rules may force MTN Ghana to stop many SIM cards

MTN’s Ghana operation may have to deactivate about a quarter of SIM cards on its network to comply with a directive from that country’s regulators on biometric registration.

Ghana’s National Communications Authority said on Tuesday that operators such as MTN will have to deactivate SIM cards that have completed the first stage of a registration process, which ties these to a national identification card.

Offending SIMs have not completed the second phase of this process that concerns biometric capture.

MTN has in recent years been making an effort to comply with regulations in its various operating countries to avoid skirmishes and possible fines that it and pay-TV operator MultiChoice had to deal with in places such as Nigeria.

The group infamously faced a $5bn fine in Nigeria over SIM registrations in 2015.

In Ghana, MTN has about 22.1-million subscribers that have completed the first stage registration, with 16.4-million having completed the biometric capture.

That leaves 5.7-million customers at risk of deactivation on December 1 as part of the directive.

MTN said it is committed to the registration exercise to help minimise fraud and to build an accurate customer database.

The prospect of the cutting off of customers in Nigeria caused a sell-off in MTN shares earlier in the year.

The Nigeria Communications Commission said that all operators are required to restrict outgoing calls of subscribers whose SIMs are not yet linked with its national identity number, which is similar to SA’s ID system. The 2015 incident also hammered MTN ’ s share price.

The market appeared unfazed by the Ghana news, with the share price marginally positive at R135.95.

MTN Ghana is also facing further regulatory pressure after the government instructed it to implement a 1.5% levy on mobile money transfers from May 1.

As mobile money has grown, regulators have started devising ways to control or tax transactions on these platforms.

Rival Vodacom is feeling the effects of such moves in Tanzania, while MTN highlighted in May that it is dealing with new mobile-money taxes being implemented in Benin and Cameroon.

THE OFFENDING CARDS HAVE NOT COMPLETED THE SECOND PHASE OF A PROCESS THAT CONCERNS BIOMETRIC CAPTURE