Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region of the world where Mobile Money is the most dynamic. For the year 2019, the zone recorded 23.8 billion transactions out of the 37.1 billion recorded worldwide by the World Association of Telephony Operators (GSMA). Or 64.15% of the volume of global transactions, up 19.7%. Sub-Saharan Africa has also dominated the global...
Ethiopia has told foreign mobile money companies there will be no room for them to operate in the country, opting instead to promote local operators. This puts Kenyan telco, Safaricom’s plans in jeopardy considering it had hoped to introduce its popular M-Pesa mobile money transfer platform in the market of 100 million people. Safaricom had been...
Ethiopia’s central bank issued regulations allowing non-banks to offer basic financial services, opening the door for operator groups mulling entry to the country’s wireless market to potentially add mobile money to their portfolios. The guidelines are effective today (1 April) and allow for non-financial services companies to offer a number of services core to standard...
While the Kenya government has urged citizens to adopt cashless transactions to limit person-to-person contact amid the Coronavirus outbreak, experts have raised concern over downtime experienced by service providers. In November 2019 the Communications Authority of Kenya ordered a probe into downtime with M-Pesa. Safaricom experienced downtime again on 2 March 2020, with users not...
Airtel Tanzania is set to disburse Sh2.6billion as interest to its mobile money customers across the country for using Airtel Money services. The disbursement will be for all Airtel Money customers and agents all over the country who will use the service for the period between April and September 2019. Interest disbursement is money given...
Orange Morocco has announced the launch of Orange Money in the kingdom, having secured approval from the Bank Al Maghrib, the North African country’s central bank. Morocco becomes the 18th country within the MEA region to offer the solution and means locals can make mobile payments and transfer money using their phones. Orange’s value proposition...
Vodacom Group and Safaricom’s M-Pesa platform has ambitions to do more than just provide mobile money services, reports BusinessTech. Managing executive for M-Pesa at Vodacom, Chris Williamson, said it plans things like enterprise services, group lending and other financial services. However, it does not have plans to become a digital bank, which operates on a...
The government of Côte d’Ivoire announces the interoperability of digital financial services in 2020. The project, which is in line with the regional strategy for financial inclusion, led by the Central Bank of the African States Ouest (BCEAO), aims to increase the number of Ivorians who access financial services. The interoperability of digital financial services,...
Samsung has announced that South Africa’s Nedbank Mastercard cards are now supported by the Samsung Pay app, reports MyBroadband. Samsung Pay will go over 70 percent coverage of all bank cards in South Africa, the company said. Samsung has sent a notice to Nedbank customers informing them that they can now enrol their Nedbank Mastercard...
MTN South Africa has launched a mobile money service (MoMo) to enable around 11 million people to access financial services. MoMo is available to all South African citizens, regardless of the network they are using. The platform is powered by UBank and uses the Ericsson Wallet Platform. MTN’s MoMo service enables customers to use their mobile...
