Mobile money is part of daily life in Ghana, so many business apps need to accept it: ordering food, paying school fees, buying airtime, paying a supplier. Some adverts we read listed fintech experience or in app payments as an advantage. This lesson teaches the pattern that applies whichever payment provider a business chooses, so you can read any provider's documentation with confidence.
The players
- The customer, with a mobile money wallet on their phone.
- Your app, where they choose what to buy.
- Your server (or cloud functions), which holds the secret keys and records orders.
- A payment provider, a licensed company that connects businesses to mobile money networks through an API. Businesses usually sign up with one provider that supports several networks.
How a typical payment flows
- The customer taps "Pay GHS 50" in your app and enters or confirms their mobile money number.
- Your app asks your server to start a payment. It sends the order ID, not the price the app thinks is right; your server looks up the real price.
- Your server calls the provider's API with its secret key, the amount, the phone number and a unique reference for this attempt.