Last year group Chief Executive Officer Rob Shuter told a telecoms conference in Cape Town that the company would relaunch mobile money services in South Africa, three years after canning the service.
Shuter, who has experience in banking, is in the middle of a strategic revamp of Africa’s biggest telecoms group to hunt for returns in everything from financial services, music and video games. “The introduction of this mobile money service is a pivotal step in MTN’s strategy and represents MTN’s participation in the next phase of increasing convergence we are seeing between financial services and mobile technology,”The service, called MoMo, will run on the Ericsson Converged Wallet.
MTN will kick off the service in a country where about 11 million South Africans remain unbanked, while 50% of the adult population remains thinly served, according to MTN South Africa Chief Officer of Mobile Financial Services, Felix Kamenga. “MoMo aims to bridge this gap with this innovative mobile money offering, providing a payments solution that encourages financial inclusion,” he added.