A weaker cedi works the other way for you. When the cedi falls against the pound, each pound buys more cedis. The cedi had fallen against the pound in 2026 as well, so £300 bought more cedis in September than it did at the end of 2025. So keep to your usual send, and spend your time on the part you control, which is the app you open.
Should you wait?
No. On 24 September there was no rate reason to hold off on a routine family send. The pound-to-cedi rate had moved 0.5 percent in six days. Waiting on £300 to save £1.50 was not worth it, because the rate can move the other way just as easily. A weaker cedi gives you more cedis on your next send, and a stronger cedi gives you fewer.
If she has bills to pay, send it.
Which app to open
The app you open moved your money more than the week you sent. On 24 September, two apps on the same £300 were about 43 cedis apart. That is about twice the 22 cedis the rate took off in the six days before.
For a routine £200 to £300 send to a family MTN MoMo wallet, open Wise and Sendwave. Both name MTN on their own pages. Put the same amount in each and send with the one that shows more cedis. Wise pays at most 2,800 cedis (about £180) into a wallet in one transfer, so £200 to £300 on Wise means two transfers, and each transfer has its own fee.
LemFi charges no fee to Ghana, but its Ghana page does not name MTN, so check the app before you choose it for an MTN wallet. If it is your first-ever Remitly transfer, compare it too. Remitly's UK to Ghana offer through 31 December 2026 is £10 off your first transfer of £50 or more, plus no fee unless you pay by credit card.
For £300 on 24 September, Instarem was worth a look. In the Wise price comparison feed pulled that day it delivered GHS 4,557.89 for a zero fee, at a rate about 0.8 percent below the real rate. On the same £300, Wise delivered GHS 4,514.66. Wise's rate was the real one; the £5.20 fee was what put it a step behind Instarem. Wise's price is for a bank account. Instarem's row does not say if its price is for a bank account or a wallet. The comparison does not say how the sender paid.
Three things to watch, whichever app you open:
- The MTN MoMo cash-out fee is on your family's side, not yours. It is 1 percent of a withdrawal between GHS 50 and 2,000, or a flat 20 cedis above that. Fewer, larger withdrawals cost less. Money kept on the wallet and spent from the wallet does not attract the fee. See the Ghana guide for the full breakdown.
- Check her wallet limit first. On 4 November 2026
MTN's limit on a Minimum wallet was 3,000 cedis a day, so £200 to £300 can be too much for it. - If a UK bank app quotes zero fee on a Ghana transfer, the cost is inside the rate. Put £300 into the bank app and £300 into a MoMo app side by side, and compare the cedi number at the bottom. That is the only figure that matters.
Why the news did not cost you
The Bank of Ghana said on Wednesday 23 September 2026 that the cedi had weakened by about 9.5 percent against the US dollar in 2026 to 18 September. That was real, and Ghana's press was right to lead on it. The same Bank of Ghana table shows the cedi down 9.0 percent against the pound over the same dates. So the news about the dollar was close to the news about the pound.
For a UK sender, that fall gave more cedis, not fewer. The Bank's rate was 14.06 cedis per pound at the end of December 2025 and 15.45 on 18 September 2026. At those rates £300 was worth about 4,217 cedis and then about 4,634 cedis, before any app took its cost. That is about 417 cedis more. Counted as cedis per pound, the rate rose 9.9 percent. The Bank's 9.0 percent is the same move, measured as what the cedi lost.
What your app showed
The number that shows up in your app when you send £300 home to a family MoMo wallet in Accra or Kumasi is cedis per pound. On Thursday 24 September 2026 that number was close to 15.31, on the real rate Wise uses. Six days earlier, on Friday 18 September, the Wise number was 15.39. The Bank's 15.45 for that day is a little higher because it comes from a different source. On 9 August the Wise number was close to 15.87.
So the pound-to-cedi number had come down by half a percent in the six days to 24 September. It was still well above the 14.06 at the end of 2025.
What that means for £300 to your mother
At the real rate, before any app took its cost, £300 was worth about 4,760 cedis on 9 August and about 4,590 cedis on 24 September. That is about 170 cedis less, or about £11 at that day's rate. The gap was real, and it was about 3.5 percent.
The Friday number of 18 September is a closer marker. On £300 to Ghana on Friday 18 September 2026, the best of the three apps that quoted a fresh price was Instarem, delivering GHS 4,580.52 with no fee. On the same £300 on 24 September, Instarem delivered about 4,558 cedis at its rate that day, still with no fee. Over those six days, that is a difference of about 22 cedis, or roughly £1.50 in sterling.
Rates and fees on this page are from Thursday 24 September 2026 and have not been updated since. The Wise real rate was 15.3143 cedis per pound at 05:08 UK time; an independent rate feed the same morning had it at 15.3864. If the cedi moves against the pound, the numbers on this page move with it.
Corrections
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page said the Instarem figures were for £300 to a Ghanaian cedi bank account, and that two apps were 43 cedis apart on £300 to a bank account. The comparison does not say which payout Instarem's row prices, so those words are gone and the page now says only Wise's price is for a bank account.
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page warned about a UK bank app that does not show you the exchange rate. Barclays, Lloyds and NatWest each say they show the rate before you confirm, so those words are gone and the zero-fee warning stays.
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page said Remitly's offer came with no fee. Remitly's terms say the no-fee does not apply to a credit card, and the page now says so.
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page said the pound-to-cedi rate moved 0.5 percent in a week, called 18 September a week before 24 September, and spoke of waiting a week. Those dates are six days apart, so the page now says six days and "a week" is cut from the waiting line.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page treated a falling cedi as bad for your send. It said the same £300 might arrive as fewer cedis, and it offered a further fall against the dollar as a risk of sending now. That was the wrong way round: a weaker cedi means more cedis per pound.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said the pound-to-cedi rate had barely moved since August, that the news and the app were not the same story, and that the rate's fall was not the ten percent in the headline, because the pound had strengthened against the dollar and the two moves partly cancelled. The pound had not strengthened against the dollar, and the Bank of Ghana gives the cedi down 9.0 percent against the pound over the same dates as its 9.5 percent against the dollar.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said the pound-to-cedi rate had drifted down by about three and a half percent in six weeks. That fall runs from 9 August to 24 September, which is more than six weeks, and the rate did not fall steadily over those dates. Those words are gone, and the page gives the fall by its dates.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said the Bank of Ghana's 9.5 percent covered the first nine months, that the Bank read it as mostly a dollar story, and that the dollar had strengthened against most currencies. The figure runs to 18 September and the Bank did not say mostly, so the period is corrected and the other two lines are cut. The line that nothing was scheduled in the next two weeks to move the rate is also cut, because we had no calendar behind it.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page gave the Wise rate as read at 04:08 UK time, when it was 05:08. It tied the 15.87 rate to the Ghana guide's last check, when the reading was from 9 August. It also said Remitly's £10 came off any transfer of £50 or more, when it is for the first transfer only.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said the Friday number tracked the live figure week by week, but the link went to one issue from 18 September, which does not change. That line is cut. The title no longer says "this month", and the lines that said "this week" or "today" now give 24 September. The page now also says Wise pays at most 2,800 cedis into a wallet in one transfer, so £200 to £300 on Wise means two transfers.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said £300 arrived as close to 4,760 cedis in early August and 4,560 on 24 September, a gap of 200 cedis or about £13, and a small fraction of the ten percent move. The first figure was before any app's cost and the second was after it. Both are now at the real rate, about 4,760 and 4,590, a gap of about 170 cedis, about £11 or 3.5 percent.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said to open LemFi or Wise for an MTN wallet, that they usually come within a pound of each other, and that a first Remitly send can be the cheapest. LemFi's own pages do not name MTN, the gap on 4 November was more than a pound, and we have no Remitly rate to test the last line, so all three are gone. The line that the Ghana guide verdict still held is cut too. The page now names Wise and Sendwave, and adds MTN's daily wallet limit.