The Ghana press this week is full of one story. The cedi is under pressure and has weakened almost 10 percent against the US dollar in the first nine months of 2026. If you are in the UK and reading those headlines, and you sent £300 to your mother last month, the natural worry is that the same £300 will land as noticeably fewer cedis this month, or that you should wait for the news to settle before you send again.
The headline is accurate about the cedi against the dollar. It is describing a different number from the one your app quotes when you send pounds home. That number, cedis per pound, has barely moved since August.
The two cedi stories
There are two cedi stories in circulation this week, and they are not the same story.
The first is cedis per dollar. The Bank of Ghana said on Wednesday 23 September 2026 that the cedi has depreciated by about 9.5 percent against the US dollar in the first nine months of 2026. That is real, and Ghana’s press is right to lead on it. The Bank of Ghana’s own read is that this is mostly a dollar story. The US dollar has strengthened against most currencies this year, and the cedi is one of the ones it has strengthened against.
The second is cedis per pound. This is the number that shows up in your app when you send £300 home to a family MoMo wallet in Accra or Kumasi. On Thursday 24 September 2026 that number is close to 15.31 cedis per pound, on the real rate Wise uses. An independent rate feed the same day has it at 15.39. A week earlier, on Friday 18 September, the Wise number was 15.39. In early August, when the Ghana guide was last checked, it was close to 15.87.
So the pound-to-cedi number has drifted down by about three and a half percent in six weeks, and by half a percent in the last week. That is not the ten percent the headline is about. The reason is that the pound has strengthened against the dollar over the same period. Cedis weakened against the dollar. Pounds strengthened against the dollar. The two moves partly cancel on the pound-to-cedi rate your app quotes.
What that means for £300 to your mother
If you sent £300 to her MTN MoMo wallet in early August, at the rate we recorded then, it landed close to 4,760 cedis. Sending the same £300 today, it lands close to 4,560. That is about 200 cedis less, or a gap of about £13 in sterling at today’s rate. The gap is real, and it is a small fraction of the ten percent move the headline is describing.
Last week’s Friday number is a closer marker. On £300 to a Ghanaian cedi bank account on Friday 18 September 2026, the best of the three apps that quoted a fresh price was Instarem, landing GHS 4,580.52 with no fee. On the same £300 today, Instarem lands about 4,558 cedis at its current rate, still with no fee. Week to week, that is a difference of about 22 cedis, or roughly £1.50 in sterling.
Week to week, on this send size, the cedi story you are reading in the news and the cedi story your app is quoting are not the same story.
Should you wait?
There is no rate reason to hold off on a routine family send this week. The cedi may weaken further against the dollar, but the pound-to-cedi rate has moved 0.5 percent in a week, and there is nothing scheduled in the next two weeks that will noticeably move it for a family send. Waiting a week on £300 to save £1.50 is not worth it, because the rate can move the other way just as easily.
If she has bills to pay, send it.
Which app to open this week
The Ghana guide verdict still holds. For a routine £200 to £300 send to a family MTN MoMo wallet, open LemFi or Wise. They usually land within a pound of each other. If it is your first-ever Remitly transfer, that one send can be the cheapest of the lot, because Remitly’s UK to Ghana offer through 31 December 2026 is £10 off any transfer of £50 or more, plus no fee.
For £300 to a Ghanaian cedi bank account this week, Instarem is worth a look. In the Wise price comparison feed pulled on 24 September 2026 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 landed GHS 4,514.66. Wise’s rate is the real one; the £5.20 fee is what puts it a step behind Instarem.
Two 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.
- If a UK bank app quotes zero fee on a Ghana transfer but does not show you the exchange rate on the screen, 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.
Rates and fees on this page are current as of Thursday 24 September 2026. The Wise real rate was 15.3143 cedis per pound at 04:08 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. The Friday number tracks the live figure week by week.