Operator MTN South Africa has announced a move into a new area of financial services. It has launched funeral cover to South African consumers under its new Khava brand – via WhatsApp.
You might reasonably expect that cab passengers using the Uber ride-hailing app in Kenya could already pay for trips via Safaricom’s mobile payment service M-Pesa – but you would be wrong; the arrival of the service was announced this week.
Mobile money growth continues across Africa. Two recent announcements, from IDT Corporation, a global fintech company, and from TerraPay, a leading global payments infrastructure company partnering with operator Safaricom, are the latest example of companies targeting consumers in Africa – and notably the remittance market.
TerraPay has partnered with Morocco’s Attijariwafa Bank to facilitate real-time and seamless global money transfers directly to bank accounts in Morocco.
Cashless innovation continues across Africa. This time Kenyan bank KCB is partnering with payment giant Visa and technology company Thales to enable contactless payment transactions.
Pan-African service provider Vodacom has been busy with payment services both in South Africa, with extensions to the operator’s VodaPay super app, and regionally, with a managed payment service.
Hormuud Telecom has partnered with the GSMA Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation Programme (M4H) to drive the humanitarian sector’s adoption of Hormuud’s mobile network services in Somalia.
Solomon Islands operator Our Telekom has launched its “highly anticipated” mobile money service, M-SELEN.
Vodafone Fiji has extended its partnership with Paymentology to enable the issue of Mastercard digital first cards to its customers via the M-PAiSA app.
It was pretty much a formality, but now it’s been confirmed. Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia has been officially granted a license to operate mobile money services in Ethiopia. The licence comes seven months after the commercial launch of its mobile communications services in the country.
Ecobank Kenya, in collaboration with Fingo, a Kenyan fintech, has unveiled the Fingo Africa banking app, aimed at young people. Launched last week in Nairobi, the app will roll out across Ecobank’s pan-African footprint of 33 countries as well as France, the UK, the UAE and China.
Africell has launched its mobile money platform Afrimoney in Angola as the operator highlighted low mobile finance penetration in the country in its pursuit of growth.
Mobile money accounts grew 13% to 1.6 billion in 2022 as daily transactions reached in value of US$3.45 billion, according to trade body the GSMA.
Meta Platforms launched a payments tool in WhatsApp designed for SMEs in Brazil, with plans in future to roll out the feature in other markets.
Published last week but now attracting attention from many African news resources is a Vodacom Group paper arguing that mobile money taxation could hamper financial inclusion gains in Africa.
Bharti Airtel, one of India’s biggest telecommunications service providers, has partnered with India Post Payments Bank (IPPB), a division of India Post, to launch WhatsApp banking services for IPPB customers, enabling them to access banking services on their mobile phone.
African digital payments network MFS Africa has announced another deal targeting the remittance market. This time it is partnering Nigeria’s Access Bank to enable outward remittances from Kenya and Nigeria.
Bangladeshi mobile money firm bKash has extended its existing partnership with Huawei.
Recent announcements in Africa have yet again underlined the growth of payment technology across the continent, with major names in the digital payments space announcing significant agreements in Egypt and Tanzania.
The African Development Fund’s Board of Directors has approved $3.9 million grant to finance an upgrade of Liberia's payments infrastructure and systems project.
The National Bank of Rwanda has granted fintech firm Flutterwave two additional licences that will boost its mobile finance offering in East Africa.
Moldovan mobile network operator Moldcell has announced its entry into the financial services market with what it describes as a first-of-its-kind digital wallet called 'moldcell money'.
Developing Telecoms met recently with Huawei FinTech and Mobile Financial Services (MFS) team, to discuss the development and growth of Huawei’s MFS business. The interview started by asking them to outline how Huawei first entered the MFS market.
New arrival in the market – and now the second national operator in the country – Safaricom Ethiopia and Commercial Bank of Ethiopia have signed an MoU.
Ooredoo business, a communications provider focused on supporting business needs, and part of Ooredoo, the Qatari multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Doha, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with My Rateb to collaborate on new financial services in Kuwait.
Intra-African cross-border remittances and digital wallet company EziPay has partnered with digital payments gateway MFS Africa to bring last-mile connectivity for remittances and collections to and from mobile money wallets and bank accounts in Africa.
SC Ventures, Standard Chartered's innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm, has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Yabx, a firm aiming to enable the underserved with limited credit history to get fair access to financial services tailored to their needs.
Electronic financial service ZainCash Iraq has announced the launch of Western Union international money transfer services through the ZainCash mobile application, enabling customers in Iraq to connect to more than 200 countries and territories.
Fintech provider Optasia is launching a microloan service in Guinea with pan-African Ecobank and MTN, via the latter’s MoMo (Mobile Money) service.
Mama Money, a South African fintech that offers cross-border money transfer and banking services, has partnered with AFC Commercial Bank, a market leader in Zimbabwe with a reliable and robust payout network.
TOD, described as the fastest growing streaming platform for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has struck a strategic partnership with TPAY, a leading payments company in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META).
Thai operator AIS abandoned a joint venture with Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) to deliver digital banking services.
It appears African operators no longer have the fintech market all to themselves. In fact NCBA Group, a Kenya-headquartered financial services conglomerate, recently announced that is planning to work with partners to bring its mobile phone banking service M-Shwari to Ghana, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
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