MTN Group and Swedish technology company Ericsson have formed a strategic
alliance to expand MTN Group’s fintech operations in Africa.
By utilizing MTN’s Mobile Money (MoMo) service on the Ericsson Wallet Platform, the
the partnership aimed to increase financial inclusion from first-time consumers to high-end
enterprise applications with a focus on providing mobile banking services and financially
empowering millions of African citizens.
Senior MTN Group representatives visited Ericsson’s Group Headquarters in Kista, Sweden,
where the two companies discussed key strategic priorities and potential future cooperation.
During the meeting, the agreement was signed.
According to ITWeb, the Ericsson Wallet Platform processes 2.8 billion transactions through
financial institutions and communication service providers worldwide each month, including
approximately 400 million mobile wallets. These transactions have a total value of $40
billion.
According to the companies, the extension of their cooperation also includes developing the
Open API services platform and moving towards public cloud deployments, both of which will
contribute to the acceleration of financial innovation in Africa.
MTN stated that “By utilizing continuous integration/continuous deployment, it will enable an
automated software development and deployment workflow for the MTN Mobile Money
(MoMo) fintech platform across all of its African operations and will allow entrepreneurs to
create revenue-generating applications.”
MTN’s African clients would have access to a financial ecosystem built on mobile
connectivity with the full spectrum of services.
MTN will not only expedite its objective of augmenting financial inclusion for the unbanked
but also offer inventive financial services to cater to the rapidly evolving digital financial
requirements of both individuals and enterprises.
The parties state that the platform focuses heavily on financial technology, or fintech, with
particular attention paid to the expansion of merchant and e-commerce payments,
remittance services, which facilitates domestic and international money transfers between
family members, the advancement of bank tech, and insurtech, which offers insurance
services.
With 16 African countries home to over 63 million active MTN users utilizing its Mobile
Money platform in some capacity, MTN MoMo’s annual transaction value nearly tripled from
$76 billion in 2018 to $204 billion by 2022.
Serigne Dioum, Chief Fintech Officer at MTN Group, said: “Our Mobile Money platform is
empowering people economically throughout the continent, with 63.5 million active users. In
addition to aggressively promoting financial inclusion and economic development throughout
the continent, MTN Mobile Money offers a comprehensive range of mobile financial services
to all of its users, including loans, savings accounts, payments, and money transfers."
“Our partnership with Ericsson is a vital step in realizing our Ambition 2025 objective, which
is to build the biggest and most valuable platform business in Africa and generate shared
value for our clients.”
Head of Ericsson’s mobile financial services, Michael Wallis-Brown, continued, saying that
the company’s partnership with MTN is a global model of how mobile financial services can
empower individuals and companies in the financial domain. These examples include
enabling the unbanked to take charge of their finances for the first time, facilitating access to
financial services for women, encouraging digital inclusion, and providing high-end services
to more seasoned users.
“Mobile users of all financial backgrounds can be legitimately empowered by this concept,
which can be implemented in any market worldwide. “Our esteemed MTN collaboration
additionally bolsters Ericsson’s AfricaInMotion goal to advance a sustainable and
interconnected Africa,” he said.
