How to become a MoMo merchant in Ghana: MTN, Telecel and AT

A merchant account is a mobile money wallet registered to your business, with its own merchant number instead of a personal phone number. MTN launched its version, MoMo Pay, in January 2017. A customer pays an MTN merchant by dialling *170# and choosing MoMo Pay & Pay Bill, and the merchant ID is a six-digit code, according to an MTN statement reported in 2023.

For a shop, a merchant number keeps business money apart from personal money, and it brings your receipts under the Bank of Ghana's merchant rules, which set limits by how much paperwork you provide. It also gives buyers a business code to pay instead of someone's personal number.

That last point matters for trust. Ghana's Cyber Security Authority warns that wallets used in online shopping scams often do not bear the name of the shop they claim to be. Take payment into an account in your business's name, and use that same name on your Instagram, your WhatsApp and your receipts.

MTN takes merchant applications online. Go to momomerchantapplication.mtn.com.gh, sign up with your phone number and the one-time code MTN sends, then fill in the form. MTN lists the documents for a merchant SIM as a business certificate, a letter of application and your NIA card, which is the Ghana Card. MTN says getting the SIM takes 24 to 48 hours.

MTN groups merchants into five profiles, Nano, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum, each with its own paperwork. The entry level, Nano, follows the requirements of an enhanced personal wallet, and Bronze adds the owner's TIN and a permit from your Metropolitan, Municipal or District Assembly.

If you trade without a registered business, ask MTN which profile you qualify for before you apply, because its document list for a merchant SIM asks for a business certificate. Registering a business name with the Office of the Registrar of Companies (ORC) gives you that certificate, and you will need it for a Paystack Registered account later too.

The Bank of Ghana sets merchant account tiers by the documents you provide. Its notice of 28 March 2025 sets three tiers, and Telecel's merchant pages apply the same figures:

The tiers exist because the Bank of Ghana found in 2020 that its merchant account rules under the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019 (Act 987) could only be met by registered companies, which shut small businesses out. Tier 1 lets a small trader with a Ghana Card and an Assembly licence or tax receipt take merchant payments. The GHS 10,000 monthly cap on receipts is the signal to move up to Tier 2 as sales grow.

Personal wallets have their own limits, which MTN and Telecel have applied since 1 March 2024: a daily limit of GHS 3,000 on minimum KYC, GHS 15,000 on medium KYC and GHS 25,000 on enhanced KYC, with balances capped at GHS 5,000, GHS 40,000 and GHS 75,000. A shop taking sales into a minimum-KYC personal wallet can hit those caps in a busy week.

Less is published than you might expect. MTN does not publish a current fee for paying a MoMoPay merchant, so ask MTN for the rates in writing before you tell buyers anything. Telecel's merchant FAQ says customers pay a standard fee of 0.5% of the value on merchant payments, capped at GHS 7.

MTN does publish fees for payments between merchants. Since March 2024, Silver, Gold and Platinum merchants pay 0.25% when they pay another merchant's ID, on payments below GHS 5,000, and a flat GHS 12.50 above that. Paying a merchant's phone number instead costs 0.5%, or a flat GHS 25 above GHS 5,000. Nano and Bronze merchants are exempt.

One cost is gone. The 1% electronic transfer levy, the e-levy, stopped on 2 April 2025, the day the Electronic Transfer Levy (Repeal) Act, 2025 (Act 1127) received assent. While it applied, payments to businesses registered with the Ghana Revenue Authority for income tax or VAT were excluded. In May 2026, the Bank of Ghana also told MTN's mobile money company to pause a proposed 0.75% fee on wallet-to-bank transfers, pending further consultation.

Yes, through interoperability. GhIPSS, Ghana's national payment switch, runs mobile money interoperability, which moves money from a wallet on one network to a wallet on another. Telecel says its customers can pay merchants on other networks, and that customers on other networks can pay Telecel Cash merchants; a Telecel customer paying another network's merchant enters the merchant's 10-digit number.

GhQR goes further. It is Ghana's universal QR code: with one QR code displayed in a shop, a merchant can receive payments from bank accounts, mobile money wallets and cards held with different banks and providers. Your bank, mobile money operator or payment service provider signs you up and generates the code, and GhIPSS says customers pay no fee to use it.

Telecel and AT also run their own merchant products. Telecel's online form asks for your Ghana Card number, photos of the card and a live photo, and you collect the merchant SIM at a Telecel shop. AT's website offers a Become a Merchant or an Agent form but publishes no documents or fees, so ask AT before you apply.

A merchant number suits a counter, a delivery rider or a chat, where you can watch the payment land. For a website checkout, you need a payment gateway that sends the MoMo prompt to the buyer's phone and marks the order paid on its own. Paystack and Hubtel both do this, and Paystack pays out to a bank account or a MoMo wallet.

At the time of writing (October 2026), Paystack charges 1.95% per local payment, MoMo included, on MTN, AT and Telecel wallets, and also takes Visa, Mastercard and Verve cards. Hubtel charges businesses 1.95% on MTN MoMo and Telecel Cash and 2.5% on AT Money when the business pays the fee, and offers a version where the customer pays it instead.

You can run both: a merchant number or GhQR at the counter and on delivery, and a gateway for your website and payment links. Our guides 'Paystack vs Hubtel vs expressPay' and 'How to open a Paystack account in Ghana' cover the gateway side. Maxme's Store Launch connects MoMo checkout through Paystack or Hubtel for GHS 5,000 (about US$430) on WooCommerce or GHS 6,000 (about US$517) on Shopify, one-off and excluding VAT; see our pricing page.

Confirm every payment in your own wallet before goods leave. MTN lets both the sender and the receiver check a transaction's status, and Ghana's Cyber Security Authority advises waiting for the confirmation text and checking that it comes from the network itself. A screenshot sent by the buyer proves nothing.

Know how a real reversal works. On MTN, a genuine reversal sends the recipient a prompt to approve it, so a caller asking you to send back money "sent by mistake" is not a reversal. MTN's help centre lists wrong transfers, fake reversals, fake SMS and fake blocking among the frauds you can report, and it tells every customer never to share their MoMo PIN.

Buyers worry too: the Cyber Security Authority counted 210 online shopping fraud cases, with losses over GHS 410,000, from January to October 2024. A merchant account in your business's name gives careful buyers a reason to pay you. Maxme's free Ads & Store Audit checks every step from "how much?" to paid, including how buyers pay you, and sends a short video on WhatsApp within 2 working days, with the three fixes that matter most.