“Africa’s second-biggest company by market value said net income rose 12% to 37.1 billion shillings ($332 million) in the six months through September. Sales on Safaricom’s money transfer and payments platform, M-Pesa, grew by 46%, boosting service revenue to 138.4 billion shillings, Chief Finance Officer Dilip Pal said at a briefing in the capital, Nairobi.  The value of M-Pesa transactions grew 51.5% year-on-year boosting total revenue to 146.4 billion shillings. The number of customers who use Safaricom services each month increased 4.7% to 31.75 million from a year earlier, Pal said.”

“In a country-first for Malawi, mobile money service provider TNM Mpamba today launched a Mastercard debit card, enabling its customers – even those without bank accounts – to make safe and seamless in-person and online digital payments on the Mastercard network. Dubbed “Khadi Mbambande”, the new card is expected to enhance financial inclusion and improve access to the digital economy. Powered by National Bank of Malawi, the physical Mastercard debit card is linked to the TNM Mpamba mobile money wallet, giving customers new ways to access and pay for products and services at the millions of retail locations that accept Mastercard in Malawi and abroad”

“PAYING FOR things using your phone has become far more widespread during the pandemic. But Western consumers are playing catch-up. Mobile payments have been widespread for more than a decade in Africa, and in particular in Kenya , where the world’s first successful mobile-money system , called M-PESA, was launched in 2007. Why did it take off in Kenya first, how did users shape the development of the product—and what does this story reveal about innovation?”

“MTN Group widened a partnership with merchant payment technology provider Flutterwave to expand acceptance of the operator’s mobile money platforms to the latter’s customers in three new African markets. Prior to the new deal, Flutterwave customers in Uganda and Rwanda were able to accept payments through MTN’s mobile money platforms. This has now been expanded to Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Zambia.”

“On 9 July 2021 the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a new regulatory framework on mobile money services in Nigeria (the 2021 guidelines), replacing the guidelines on mobile money services that were issued in 2015 (the 2015 guidelines). The 2021 guidelines retain the existing models (bank and non-bank-led) that may be implemented by mobile money operators (MMOs) with respect to mobile money services and largely replicate the 2015 guidelines. However, they introduce a number of new features, which are outlined in this article.”

“Amidst the countless measures that have been announced recently in response to the coronavirus pandemic, both public and private, you may have missed this announcement from the Central Bank of Kenya: It is cutting transaction fees for mobile money, increasing the amount allowed in mobile wallets and reducing other mobile money tariffs, in an attempt to encourage people to avoid using hard currency and help stem the spread of the virus. This decision is consequential both because of its potential short-term impact on customers and the local economy – and also because of what it suggests about the potential impact of the coronavirus crisis on mobile money markets and digital finance ecosystems in Africa and across the developing world.”

“There is nowhere else in the world that moves more money on mobile phones than Sub-Saharan Africa. The region is currently responsible for an astonishing 45.6% of mobile money activity in the world —an estimate of at least $26.8 billion in transaction value in 2018 alone—this figure excludes bank operated solutions. Mobile money operators like MTN, who also own the mobile network, typically charge in between 0.5%–3% for their various digital services, a small price to pay for the convenience.”

“In the past decade a mobile-money revolution has swept through much of Africa, enabling the unbanked to make transfers, pay bills and save. Half of the world’s 866m mobile-money accounts are in Africa, not counting services which need users to belong to a bank. But not many are in Nigeria, its largest economy and most populous country, with 200m people, where mobile money was used for transactions worth just 1.4% of gdp last year (compared with 44% in Kenya). Four-fifths of Nigerians have never heard of it.”

“GCash, operated by Globe Fintech Innovations Inc. (Mynt), continuously sets up as many QR-enabled merchants as possible, because it believes that the future of mobile digital payments lies on innovative technologies. “QR payments provide security and convenience to both merchants and their customers,” said JM Aujero, vice president for Merchant Solutions. Our thrust as a mobile wallet is to acquire as many merchant partners as possible — even micro-entrepreneurs such as taho vendors — to future-proof us from the expected boom in usage.””

“Safaricom, which is partly owned by South Africa’s Vodacom and Britain’s Vodafone, said rapid growth in M-Pesa had offset a sharp slowdown in the growth of its internet access provision, data, business. M-Pesa revenue jumped 19.2 percent to account for 31.2 percent of the company’s revenue of 240.3 billion shillings, Chief Financial Officer Sateesh Kamath told investors at a briefing.”

“The project is being undertaken in collaboration with the Zambia Electronic Clearing House Limited (ZECHL) and implemented under the National Financial Switch (NFS), an electronic platform (system) which will link all mobile money operators in a bid to increase financial inclusion among the over 60% unbanked Zambians. The NFS is being established under the National Payment System with the aim of linking with other payment systems (individual operators’ payment systems) without undue restrictions.”

“And he is clear that the company needs a successor with yet another set of skills, as the chapter of the ‘ubiquitous platform’ begins. “I have never been a good mergers and acquisitions person, but we will need someone who can spot a deal and grab it,” concludes Collymore. “[We need] someone who understands the financial sector a lot more, if we are to occupy the fintech space, and someone who is not going to be scared of going into other markets.””

“In Tanzania, making one send money payment requires a user to enter somewhere between 39-46 digits, a hard enough task for anyone, let alone someone who may be newly adjusting to mobile phone service. Using Nala, users can make payments to anyone on any device, and it only requires a one-time download to start transacting, according to the company. Think of Nala has taken all of the short codes from all of the transaction providers and created a router system that users can operate without having to memorize the different underlying coding. Currently live in Tanzania, with over 100,000 users, Fernandes says that his company has plans to expand to at least two other African countries over the course of 2019.”

“At the end of 2018, there were more than 866 million registered accounts in 90 countries – a 20 per cent increase from 2017. The report also shows that the mobile money industry processed transactions worth US$1.3 Billion per day in 2018, with digital transaction values growing at more than twice the rate of cash transactions, indicating that cash is becoming less central to customers’ lives.”

“Nigeria might be Africa’s largest economy, but when it comes to financial matters, people typically favour cash payments over technology. Despite high mobile penetration, only 6% of the population uses mobile phones to make financial transactions. And 60% of Nigerians still do not have a bank account, so they don’t have access to digital services on offer. In contrast, 73% of the population in Kenya have a mobile payment account.”

“The system’s implementation process will take 18 months before taking off in June 2020. Launching the platform known as Tanzania Instant Payment System (TIPS), the BoT Deputy Governor (Financial Stability and Deepening), Dr Bernard Kibesse, said the central bank and other payment providers realised the need for interoperability of mobile money services in order to facilitate instant transfers between customers of different service providers.”