Telenor Group is selling its entire 34.2% stake in Wave Money to Yoma Strategic Holdings for $76.5 million.
It’s only been a week since the announcement that Brazil will be the first market where people can send and receive money via WhatsApp using Facebook Pay. Now, it seems, everything is on hold after an intervention by Brazil’s central bank.
WhatsApp has announced that it is bringing digital payments to its users in Brazil. Brazil will be the first market where people will to be able to send and receive money via the messaging app using Facebook Pay, the payments service WhatsApp owner Facebook launched last year.
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.
WhatsApp’s plans to launch a mobile payments service in India may have been derailed yet again after it emerged that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) is investigating the company for abusing its market dominance.
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.
Facebook is reportedly seeking regulatory clearance to launch a mobile payments offering in Indonesia alongside local partners.
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.
Vodafone has completed the sale of the M-Pesa brand to a new joint venture founded by Vodacom and Safaricom.
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.
Samsung has launched its mobile wallet service Samsung Pay in Kazakhstan.
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.
Facebook has been given the green light to launch WhatsApp payments in India after a number of regulatory delays.
MTN has re-entered the South African mobile money market after shelving its previous offering over three years ago.
Myanmar’s state-owned MPT has launched its mobile money platform after getting the green light from the country’s central bank in October last year.
