Mobile Finance

It has been suggested that some of Nigeria’s telecommunications companies may be unable to enter the mobile money market after the decision by the country’s central bank that new entrants must guarantee a significant capital base.

Pan-Africa cross-border payments group MFS Africa has partnered with MoneyGram to enable P2P payments and money transfers in Africa.

Airtel Africa and MoneyGram have announced a partnership that will allow 19 million Airtel Money subscribers to receive international MoneyGram transfers directly into their mobile wallets.

Pan-African operator Airtel Africa and leading international banking group Standard Chartered Bank have announced a strategic collaboration to drive financial inclusion across key markets in Africa by providing customers with increased access to mobile financial services.

According to the Reuters news service, South African operator Telkom has launched a life insurance business that, it has said, will initially sell funeral insurance.

Underlining the growing business interest in African online finance, two more digital commerce-related deals have recently been announced.

Pan-African telecommunications and mobile money services company Airtel Africa has announced a deal with African remittance organisation Mukuru.

Orange has partnered with bancassurance leader NSIA to launch Orange Bank Africa in Abidjan and Côte d’Ivoire.

Telenor Group is selling its entire 34.2% stake in Wave Money to Yoma Strategic Holdings for $76.5 million.

Liberian operator Lonestar Cell MTN has announced two initiatives to make mobile payment and social media access easier for its customers.

Mobile banking has been one of the great success stories in emerging markets - particularly within Africa - and in the wake of Covid-19, many in the financial sector are calling for further digitalisation to ensure resilience and growth.

Nigerian financial services firm Carbon is enabling its customers to access its offering from within whichever app they are using.

A fascinating side effect of the coronavirus-led lockdowns in multiple countries is their impact on payment methods – and notably payment methods in India, where a recent report says, digital payments are surging.

Veon’s JazzCash has partnered with Mastercard to strengthen the payments ecosystem for merchants and customers in Pakistan.

There’s a new player in the mobile money remittance space as m-Gurush, South Sudan’s first mobile money service, launches international remittance services on its Mobile Money platform.

Another tie-up between a mobile operator – in this case Safaricom – and a major digital payments company may not be much of a surprise, but it certainly confirms a growing interest from major names across the cashless payment sector in Africa’s mobile money market.

Tigo Tanzania has enabled interoperability between mobile wallet services, allowing customers to send and receive funds from M-Pesa in Kenya, MTN in Uganda and Rwanda, and Airtel in Rwanda.

Zimbabwe’s second-biggest operator, the state-owned service provider NetOne, is expecting a rise in subscriber numbers after the announcement of a recent government initiative.

Free, Senegal’s second-largest mobile network operator, has deployed mobiquity Money from Indian mobility solutions provider Comviva to enhance its mobile money service Free Money.

eWallet – a new service from telecoms giant Etisalat and Dubai-based full-service bank Noor Bank – has been launched in the UAE, promising international remittance services from the UAE to 200 countries.

A flurry of activity in Kenya has seen banks and operators make cashless payments easier.

Orange Money is launching in Morocco.

The government of Côte d'Ivoire is seeking to increase the usage of mobile banking in the country by allowing interoperability between different digital financial services.

Cameroon has ordered MTN and Orange to implement ID checks for all parties involved in mobile money transactions, after it emerged that ransom payments had been made using their transfer services.