The Ugandan government is drafting legislation that will transfer the regulation of mobile money services to the Bank of Uganda, according to the deputy governor Louis Kasekende.
In a speech released on April 24, Kasekende said the national payment system law will give sole responsibility for the regulation of mobile money and payment services to the BoU. The legislation was endorsed by the minister of finance, Matia Kasaija, in February and is expected to become law by the end of the year.
The National Payments Bill will seek to streamline Uganda’s payment system in which government it seeking to reduce cash payments by at least 2022.
Currently, the Uganda communications commissions and bank of Uganda are the both sharing the responsibility of governing the mobile money services.
But if the bill is passed, the bank of Uganda will be the sole regulator of the mobile money services taking away the responsibilities, it shares with UCC.
The central bank has the sole responsibility of regulating financial services but financial services offered by telecoms have remained largely unregulated given that they are offered by non-financial institutions.
According to statistics from UCC, Uganda has about 23 million mobile money subscribers. And more than Shs64 trillion was transacted through mobile money in 2018.
