In a strategic move aimed at deepening its foothold in the African fintech landscape, MTN Group has recently entered into a collaborative partnership with the renowned Swedish technology firm, Ericsson. The primary objective of this alliance is to bolster mobile banking services and foster financial empowerment for millions of African citizens. The strategic focus is on amplifying financial inclusion, targeting both first-time consumers and high-end enterprise applications by leveraging MTN’s robust Mobile Money (MoMo) service on the advanced Ericsson Wallet Platform.
The formalization of this agreement took place during a visit by senior MTN Group officials to Ericsson’s Group Headquarters in Kista, Sweden. This meeting served as a platform for the two companies to delve into major strategic priorities and discuss prospects for future collaboration in the dynamic African fintech landscape.
A notable feature of this collaboration is the utilization of Ericsson Wallet Platform, known for handling over 400 million mobile wallets and facilitating a staggering 2.8 billion transactions valued at $40 billion every month. This platform operates through communication service providers and financial institutions on a global scale, demonstrating its extensive reach and capability.
The partnership also encompasses a transition to public cloud deployments and the development of an Open API services platform. These initiatives are geared towards expediting financial innovation across the African continent. MTN has highlighted the potential impact on entrepreneurship, enabling the development of revenue-generating applications and streamlining the software development and deployment workflow for the MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) fintech platform across all its operations.
With a comprehensive suite of services, the collaboration aims to provide MTN’s African customer base with access to a mobile connectivity-based financial ecosystem. Beyond the immediate goal of enhancing financial inclusion for the unbanked, the partnership seeks to offer innovative financial services catering to the rapidly evolving digital financial needs of both individuals and businesses.
Key focus areas identified in this collaboration include the growth of merchant and e-commerce payments, facilitating national and international money transfers (remittance services), advancing banking solutions (banktech), and providing insurance services (insurtech). This holistic approach underscores a strong emphasis on financial technology (fintech) to address diverse aspects of the financial landscape.
MTN’s Mobile Money platform has demonstrated substantial growth, with over 63 million active users across 16 African nations. The yearly transaction value for MTN MoMo has witnessed an impressive surge, nearly tripling from $76 billion in 2018 to a substantial $204 billion by the end of 2022.
Chief Fintech Officer at MTN Group, Serigne Dioum, expressed the significance of this collaboration in advancing economic empowerment across the continent. Dioum emphasized that MTN Mobile Money offers a wide range of mobile financial services, including money transfers, payments, savings, and loans, actively fostering financial inclusion and economic development.
MTN
Head of mobile financial services at Ericsson, Michael Wallis-Brown, lauded the collaboration as a world-leading example of how mobile financial services can empower people and businesses. He highlighted its potential to provide financial control to the unbanked, ease access for women to financial services, promote digital inclusion, and cater to advanced users with high-end services. Wallis-Brown concluded by stating that this model could be applied globally to genuinely empower mobile subscribers across diverse financial standings, aligning with Ericsson’s vision to support a sustainable and connected Africa.
Source: guardian.ng
