Ericsson and
the MTN Group have strengthened their partnership to enhance mobile financial
services and financially empower millions of citizens across Africa. The
partnership is set to broaden the scope of financial inclusion from first-time
users to high-end business applications, utilising MTN’s Mobile Money (MoMo)
service on the Ericsson Wallet Platform.
The comprehensive suite of services will provide MTN’s customer base
across Africa with access to a world-class mobile connectivity-based financial
ecosystem.
In addition to ramping up MTN’s goal of advancing
financial inclusion for the unbanked, the service provider will offer advanced
financial services to address the rapidly evolving digital financial needs of
individuals and enterprises.
Powered by the Ericsson Wallet Platform, MTN Mobile Money enables individuals
and businesses to conduct secure and convenient banking and payment
transactions with ease, directly from their mobile devices.
MTN MoMo customers can securely manage funds, pay merchants and utility
providers, and access loans and insurance services with ease and affordability,
promoting financial freedom and stability.
The platform places a strong emphasis on financial technology (FinTech), with
focus areas including the growth of merchant and e-commerce payments,
facilitating national and international money transfers among family members
and others (remittance services), advancing banking solutions (BankTech), and
offering insurance services (InsurTech).
MTN visit to Ericsson HQ
The agreement was signed during a visit by senior MTN Group executives to
Ericsson’s Group Headquarters in Kista, Sweden, where key strategic priorities
and collaboration between the two companies was discussed.
More than 63 million MTN active subscribers already use its Mobile Money
platform in some form across 16 African countries. MTN MoMo annual transaction
value has almost tripled since 2018, growing from USD 76 billion in 2018 to USD
204 billion in 2022. Transaction volumes increased by almost 300 percent during
the same period – from 3.5 billion transactions in 2018 to 12.7 billion in
2022.
Ericsson Wallet Platform supports more than 400 million registered mobile
wallets and processes more than 2.8 billion transactions, worth more than USD
40 billion, every month through communication service providers and financial
institutions globally.
Serigne Dioum, Chief Fintech Officer, MTN Group, says: “At MTN, we are not just connecting people, we are unlocking a world of
financial possibilities for every African. With 63.5 million active users, our
Mobile Money platform is advancing economic empowerment across the continent.
MTN Mobile Money offers a spectrum of mobile financial services, encompassing
money transfers, payments, savings, and loans for every consumer, actively
driving financial inclusion, and advancing economic empowerment across the
continent. Our collaboration with Ericsson is a significant milestone in the
execution of our Ambition 2025 – building the largest and most valuable
platform business and create shared value for our customers in Africa.”
Michael
Wallis-Brown, Head of Mobile Financial Services, Ericsson, says: “Ericsson’s partnership with MTN is a
world-leading example of the ability of mobile financial services to
financially empower people and business – from giving the unbanked their first
opportunity to control their finances, making it easier for women to access financial
services and promoting digital inclusion – to enabling more advanced users to
access high-end services. This model can be applied in any market anywhere in
the world to genuinely empower mobile subscribers of all financial standings.
Our valued MTN partnership also supports Ericsson’s AfricaInMotion vision to
promote a sustainable and connected Africa.”
Other technical details
The partnership extension includes a transition to public cloud deployments and
the refinement of the Open API services framework, fostering the acceleration
of fintech innovation in Africa. It will give entrepreneurs an opportunity to
develop revenue-generating applications and, by utilising Continuous
Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), will enable an automated software
development and deployment workflow for the MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) fintech
platform across all of its African operations.