Africa processed 92 billion mobile money transactions worth $1.4 trillion in 2025 — 74% of the world’s mobile money transaction volume and 66% of its value, according to GSMA’s State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026. USSD carries most of them.

A USSD payment is a transaction a customer completes by dialling a shortcode, choosing from the menu that appears, and confirming with a PIN. No app. No internet connection. No smartphone.

This guide is for the organisation on the other side of that menu: the bank, fintech, microfinance institution or insurer deciding whether to build USSD payments on the channel.

Reach is why. 40 percent of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa had a mobile money account as of 2024, up from 27 percent in 2021, the World Bank’s Global Findex Database 2025 reports. At 40% of adults, Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rate of mobile money account ownership worldwide, and GSMA’s 2026 industry report adds the sharper detail: 20% of adults in the region have mobile money as their only financial account.

What follows: the six services you can deliver, how the biggest platforms run theirs, the security and regulatory realities, and how to launch USSD financial services in Ghana with Arkesel USSD Solutions.

What a USSD Payment Is and How It Works

USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) is a real-time protocol built into every GSM phone — for the full definition and its non-financial uses, see what USSD means and how it works. In financial services, it turns any handset into a banking terminal.

A customer dials a shortcode. A session opens on the network. They navigate menus to send money, check balances, pay bills or apply for a loan, and the transaction settles before the session closes — no data plan, no app store.

This is why Market Data Forecast reports that USSD accounted for 63.5% of total mobile money transaction volume in Africa in 2024. In the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), the concentration runs higher still: 89% of mobile money interactions in the WAEMU region occur via USSD, as reported by Market Data Forecast, citing the Central Bank of West African States.

For a provider, that is the difference between the entire addressable market and the smartphone-owning slice of it.

Why USSD Dominates Financial Services in Africa

Universal Device Reach

USSD works on every GSM phone ever made. Feature phones. Smartphones. First-generation handsets. Where smartphone ownership varies by region and income, that keeps every customer inside the service.

Zero Data Cost

USSD sessions consume no mobile data. Customers reach their accounts, send money and check balances without spending anything on a data bundle — which matters where data costs take a real share of income.

Real-Time Session Management

A USSD session is a live, interactive connection. The server responds instantly and the customer finishes in seconds. For payments, transfers and loan approvals, that speed is the product.

The Numbers Behind the Dominance

Africa holds 1.2 billion registered mobile money accounts — 52% of the global total of 2.3 billion — and 347 million accounts active in a 30-day window, 59% of the global active base, GSMA reported for 2025.

Mobile money’s contribution to Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP rose from about $150 billion in 2022 to $190 billion in 2023, lifting the region’s GDP by 4.5%, according to GSMA’s 2025 edition of the same report. That 2025 report puts mobile money above 5% of GDP in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, Liberia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania, and between 5% and 8% in Cameroon, Congo and Gabon.

The agent network is expanding with it: there were 30 million registered mobile money agents globally in 2025, 16% more than in 2024, of which 11 million were active monthly, with most active-agent growth coming from East Africa (53%), Central Africa (13%) and West Africa (10%), GSMA reported in 2026.

6 Financial Services You Can Deliver via USSD

1. Payments and Transfers

The most common USSD payment use case: send money, pay merchants, settle bills, buy airtime.

A typical payment flow:

*XXX# > Send Money > Enter Number > Enter Amount > Confirm with PIN > Done

Five steps. Done in seconds. No data required.

Where the volume is going, on GSMA’s 2026 figures:

• Merchant payments grew by almost half to $155 billion globally in 2025, the fastest-growing mobile money use case, with East Africa accounting for three-quarters of that growth, GSMA reported in 2026.
• Bill payments took almost $100 billion globally in 2025, 8% more than the previous year, and over two-thirds of that value was paid in Sub-Saharan Africa, per the same 2026 report.
• Bulk disbursements — salaries, pensions and government transfers — grew by 25% in 2025 to $139 billion globally, with Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for around 70% of bulk disbursement transaction volumes and values, GSMA’s 2026 figures show.

2. Savings and Deposits

USSD puts savings within reach of people who never had a bank account: open a wallet, set recurring deposits, track balances through structured menus.

Microfinance institutions run group savings the same way — members deposit weekly and track contributions without visiting a branch.

3. Lending and Credit

Customers apply, get scored and receive funds in their mobile wallet within minutes.

The flow:

*XXX# > Loans > Apply > Select Amount > Accept Terms > Funds Deposited

No branch visit. No paperwork.

4. Insurance and Microinsurance

USSD unlocks insurance where traditional distribution is impractical. Customers enrol in health, crop or life cover through menus, pay premiums by mobile money deduction and file claims without visiting an office.

Agriculture is the standout case. GSMA reported in 2020 that ACRE Africa, a Kenya-based index insurance provider, covered around 1.7 million smallholder farmers across East Africa. Its Bima Pima weather-index cover is sold on scratch cards carrying a unique code, which farmers register via USSD, with M-Pesa handling premium collection and claim payouts — so a farmer with a feature phone buys cover in the field and gets paid into the same wallet.

5. Account Management and KYC

Beyond transactions, USSD handles balance inquiries, mini-statements, PIN changes and Know Your Customer (KYC) verification. Customers update details, set limits and manage beneficiaries themselves, which takes load off call centres and branch staff.

6. Cross-Border Payments and Remittances

USSD-initiated international transfers move money across borders without an agent visit or an app.

36 instant payment systems are live across 31 African countries, and together they processed 64 billion transactions worth nearly USD 2 trillion in 2024, the AfricaNenda Foundation reported in its SIIPS 2025 edition.

See how USSD for business in Africa extends past financial services into customer engagement, surveys and loyalty programmes.

How Africa’s Biggest Platforms Use USSD for Mobile Money

M-Pesa: The Original USSD Financial Service

M-Pesa, launched by Safaricom in Kenya, built the mobile money industry on USSD. Customers dial M-PESA’s shortcode to send money, pay bills, save, borrow and buy insurance.

From Safaricom’s audited results for the year ended 31 March 2026: M-PESA in Kenya reached 40.99 million one-month active customers, up 14.5%, processing 46.41 billion transactions worth KShs 41.68 trillion, per the FY26 results booklet. Those are platform-wide M-PESA figures, covering every channel rather than USSD alone.

The distribution is physical: M-PESA’s agent network numbered 333,011 agents in Kenya at 31 March 2026, up 11.4% year on year, alongside 3.13 million merchants, the same booklet reports.

M-PESA also runs a smartphone app, and the dialled menu is still there — the app for smartphone owners, the shortcode for everyone else.

MTN MoMo: Scaling USSD Mobile Money Across MTN’s African Markets

MTN’s MoMo platform closed 2025 with 69.5 million monthly active users, processing 23.3 billion transactions worth US$500.3 billion — up 37.6% in constant currency — supported by 1.4 million active agents and 2.1 million active merchants, MTN Group reported for the year ended 31 December 2025.

In Ghana, MoMo is the dominant mobile money service. MTN Ghana’s MoMo active users grew 12.3% to 19.3 million in 2025 and MoMo revenue rose 35.7% to GHS 6.0 billion, according to Scancom PLC’s 2025 Financial Report. MTN counts an active user on a 30-day basis — worth holding in mind whenever “active” mobile money figures get compared across sources.

Equity Bank: USSD Mobile Banking at a Traditional Bank

Equity Bank runs USSD banking alongside branches, agents and an app, and its own reporting shows how far banking has moved off the counter. In FY2025, 98.2% of all Equity Group transactions outside the branch were conducted through self-service channels, and digital channels facilitated approximately 88.4% of the Group’s total transaction volumes, per Equity Group Holdings’ 2025 Integrated Report. Both figures are group-wide across Equity’s six countries, and “self-service” and “digital” are broader categories than USSD alone.

On the channel that carries its USSD service, Equity reports the mobile app and USSD together rather than separately. Equity’s combined mobile app and USSD channel carried 174.3 million transactions worth KES 4,360.7 billion in FY2025, up from 148.4 million transactions worth KES 3,174.4 billion in FY2024, the same report shows. Merchant acceptance runs alongside it through Pay With Equity.

USSD for banks is not a mobile money operator’s tool alone. A traditional bank can deliver a full banking experience over a dialled code — and if you are a customer rather than a provider, USSD banking: how it works, is it safe, and how to enable it answers that side of the question.

Ready to put secure financial services on every phone in Ghana, with zero data cost for your customers? Explore Arkesel USSD Solutions.

USSD vs App vs Agent: Choosing the Right Financial Services Channel

How USSD payments compare with mobile apps and agent networks as a financial services channel:

Most providers run all three: USSD payments for volume, the app for power users, agents for cash-in, cash-out and onboarding.

For a deeper comparison, see USSD vs mobile app in Africa and this guide to choosing the right channel mix for African customers.

Securing USSD Financial Transactions

Security is the most overlooked dimension of USSD payments and financial services. A large share of mobile money users across Sub-Saharan Africa still run accounts with no PIN or password protecting them — a risk and a design brief at the same time.

PIN Best Practices

Require PIN authentication at the confirmation step, not at session start. That avoids upfront friction while securing the moment that matters.

Enforce PIN complexity. Reject sequential patterns (1234) and repeated digits (0000). Prompt customers to set a PIN on first use and require periodic changes.

SIM Swap Fraud Protection

SIM swap fraud is one of the most common attack vectors against USSD financial services. An attacker convinces an operator to move a victim’s number to a new SIM, then uses USSD to drain the wallet.

Countermeasures:

• Flag recently swapped SIMs and require extra verification before high-value transactions
• Set velocity limits so unusual patterns trigger temporary holds
• Send an SMS alert on every transaction so account holders catch unauthorised activity immediately

Session Security

USSD sessions transmit over GSM signalling channels, which carry no end-to-end encryption — the data passes through the operator’s infrastructure in cleartext. So:

• Never display full account numbers — mask all but the last four digits
• Keep sessions as short as possible to shrink the exposure window
• Terminate a session automatically after a brief period of inactivity, well inside the network’s own session window

Two-Factor for High-Value Transactions

Above a defined threshold, add a second factor. The practical approach on USSD: complete the flow in the session, then require confirmation via an SMS code sent to the registered number before settlement. That adds seconds, not minutes, and cuts fraud exposure on large transfers sharply — see OTP for fintech banking for how to run that second factor at scale.

See USSD security: how to protect mobile transactions from fraud for the full threat model.

USSD Payment Regulation and Interoperability by Market

Who pays for a USSD payment session, and under whose rule, differs by market — and most providers answer it too late.

Nigeria: A Regulated Session Price and a Settled Dispute

In Nigeria the price of a USSD banking session is set by regulation, not by the bank. USSD banking sessions are charged at N6.98 per session lasting up to 120 seconds (subject to regulatory change), against N1.63 per 20-second session for other USSD transactions, the Nigerian Communications Commission states. The Central Bank of Nigeria and the NCC set it effective 16 March 2021.

What changed more recently is who collects it: under End User Billing the charge comes out of the customer’s airtime, not their bank account, per the same NCC guidance.

Separately, Nigerian banks and telecom operators cleared a four-year backlog of roughly N300 billion in accumulated USSD access fees, fully settled by 19 February 2026, as reported by TheCable, citing the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria. The settlement ended the dispute. It did not set the price.

For a provider, a regulated per-session rate makes USSD payment unit economics modellable before you build.

Ghana: Interoperability and Scale

Ghana’s interoperability infrastructure — which moves money between mobile money networks — is growing fast. The value of interoperable mobile money transactions in Ghana rose from GHS 3.1 billion in December 2024 to GHS 5.8 billion in December 2025, an increase of 87%, per the Bank of Ghana’s Summary of Economic and Financial Data (January 2026).

Registered mobile money accounts in Ghana stood at 73.0 million in December 2024, per the Bank of Ghana’s January 2026 release, and rose to 80.5 million in December 2025 and 84.6 million by June 2026, while accounts active in the prior 90 days stood at 26.7 million in December 2025 and 26.4 million in June 2026, per the July 2026 release. Registered accounts are not people — the figure runs at more than twice Ghana’s population, because customers hold accounts on several networks and dormant accounts stay on the books. Plan capacity against the active number.

The total value of mobile money transactions in Ghana rose 56.8% to GHS 3.01 trillion in 2024 from GHS 1.92 trillion in 2023, with volumes up 18.9% to 8.1 billion and the average transaction value up 32.3% to GHS 372, per the Bank of Ghana’s Payment Systems Oversight Annual Report 2024. That is the most recent full year the Bank has published.

The monthly series shows the momentum has continued since. Mobile money transactions in Ghana were worth GHS 334.8 billion in December 2024, per the January 2026 edition, and GHS 518.4 billion in December 2025 — the highest month in the Bank of Ghana’s series — per the July 2026 release.

Cross-Border Infrastructure

Cross-border interoperability is the fastest-moving part of this picture, and the part most likely to change while you build. Before you design a cross-border flow, confirm with your provider and your regulator which rails your market is connected to, and on what terms.

How to Design a USSD Mobile Money Experience

Designing USSD payment menus demands precision. Every extra step risks a dropped session.

See USSD menu design best practices for more.

Respect Session Time Limits

USSD sessions are short by design. The network closes them after a fixed window that varies by operator — confirm the current one with your provider. Financial transactions have to complete comfortably inside it.

Design flows to reach confirmation in five steps or fewer. If a transaction needs more inputs, break it into multiple sessions with saved state.

Design for the Smallest Screen

A USSD screen holds very little text — a few short lines on a feature phone. Keep labels short, use numbers for navigation, cut decorative text.

Good: 1. Send Money 2. Balance 3. Loans 4. Bills

Bad: Please select from the following options to proceed with your financial transaction today:

Handle Errors Gracefully

Invalid inputs happen constantly. Instead of ending the session, loop back to the last valid step with a clear message.

Invalid amount. Enter amount (min 1, max 10,000):

Never make a customer restart a transaction over one typo.

Build for Multilingual Users

African markets are multilingual. Offer language selection at session start and carry the preference into future sessions. Test financial terminology with native speakers so confirmation screens read unambiguously.

How Arkesel Powers USSD Financial Services in Ghana

Arkesel USSD Solutions are built for Ghana’s banks, fintechs, microfinance institutions and insurers, across MTN, Telecel and AirtelTigo.

Custom USSD code provisioning. Get your own dedicated shortcode across Ghana’s major networks. Customers dial your code and reach your service.

Here is how to get a USSD shortcode for your business in Ghana, and a buyer’s checklist for choosing a USSD shortcode provider in Ghana if you are still comparing options.

Multi-level menu API. Build payment, savings, lending, insurance and account-management flows inside a single USSD experience.

Session management. Real-time session handling keeps transactions completing reliably, with timeout management, state persistence and error recovery built in.

Zero data cost for your customers. People reach your service without spending a pesewa on data — the biggest adoption barrier removed.

Enterprise-grade reliability. Financial transactions demand 99.9% uptime. Arkesel delivers it, backed by ISO 27001 certification and direct connections to MTN, Telecel and AirtelTigo.

For current plans, see Arkesel pricing.

Getting Started: Launch Your USSD Financial Service

Step 1: Define your financial service flows.

Map every transaction your customers need: payments, balance checks, transfers, loan applications, insurance enrolment. Prioritise the three highest-volume ones for launch.

Step 2: Design your USSD menu structure.

Keep it under five levels deep. Put the most-used services at the top. Test with real customers first.

Step 3: Address regulatory requirements.

Confirm session pricing and KYC obligations with the regulator in your launch market. In Ghana that is the Bank of Ghana, whose payment systems oversight covers the rails your service will run on — confirm licensing, KYC and interoperability requirements with it directly before you launch.

Step 4: Get your USSD shortcode.

Sign up with Arkesel and provision your dedicated shortcode. Arkesel handles network registration across MTN, Telecel and AirtelTigo.

Step 5: Integrate and launch.

Connect your backend — core banking, mobile money, CRM — to Arkesel’s USSD platform over REST API. Review the developer API documentation, test end to end, then roll out.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is USSD in mobile money?

USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) is the protocol that powers mobile money across Africa. When you dial your provider’s shortcode to send money, check your balance or pay a bill, you are using USSD. It works on every phone, needs no internet, and costs nothing in data charges.

How does a USSD payment work for mobile banking in Africa?

A customer dials a bank or fintech’s USSD shortcode. A live session opens on the mobile network, displaying interactive menus on the phone screen. The customer navigates with number inputs to complete transfers, payments, balance inquiries and loan applications, secured by PIN and bound to the customer’s SIM card.

What financial services can be delivered via USSD?

Payments and transfers, savings and deposits, lending and credit disbursement, microinsurance enrolment and claims, bill payments, airtime purchases, cross-border remittances, account management and KYC verification. Any service that can be structured as a menu-driven flow can run on USSD.

How do I build a USSD mobile money experience?

Define your transaction flows, design menus that complete in under five steps, obtain a shortcode through a platform like Arkesel — available across Ghana’s MTN, Telecel and AirtelTigo networks — integrate your backend over REST API, and launch. Keep the flow inside the network’s session window, authenticate at the confirmation step, and handle input errors without restarting the session.

Is USSD secure for financial transactions?

USSD financial services are secured by PIN authentication and SIM-bound sessions, with two real considerations: sessions carry no end-to-end encryption, and SIM swap fraud is a known attack vector. Best practices: enforce PIN complexity, flag recently swapped SIMs, set velocity limits, mask account numbers and add two-factor confirmation above a threshold.

What is the future of USSD payments in Africa?

USSD payments are growing, not shrinking. Ghana’s mobile money transaction value rose 56.8% in 2024 to GHS 3.01 trillion, per the Bank of Ghana, and the Bank’s monthly series has kept climbing since.

Cross-border rails and network interoperability are both expanding. Even as smartphone adoption grows, USSD remains the highest-reach, lowest-cost channel for financial services across Africa.

Build Your USSD Financial Service with Arkesel

Africa’s mobile money market was valued at USD 951.41 million in 2025 and is projected to reach USD 4,324 million by 2034, growing at a CAGR of 18.32% from 2026 to 2034, per Market Data Forecast. That figure measures the mobile money market’s own value, not the transaction value moving across it — a different metric from the $1.4 trillion above. The opportunity to reach those customers over USSD is growing with it.

Arkesel gives you the platform to build, launch and scale USSD payments and financial services in Ghana.

Get started with Arkesel today or contact our team to discuss your USSD financial services project.

Related Articles

• 7 Business Uses for USSD: Banking, Payments & More
• How to Get a USSD Shortcode for Your Business in Ghana
• USSD vs Mobile App in Africa: Which Channel Wins?
• USSD Menu Design: 10 Best Practices for Higher Completion Rates
• How to Create a USSD Code: Developer Guide for Africa
• USSD vs SMS vs WhatsApp: Which Channel Wins in Africa?
• USSD Healthcare in Africa: 5 Patient Services, No App
• USSD Security: How to Protect Mobile Transactions from Fraud
• USSD Shortcode Provider Ghana: Buyer’s Checklist (2026)

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