Multinational mobile telecommunications company MTN, which operates in many African countries, has recently disclosed that it wants to be Africa’s leading digital platform in the fintech ecosystem. With Africa regarded as the world’s second-fastest-growing and profitable payments and banking market, the fintech ecosystem in Africa is entering a new and challenging phase with more capital and more competition from incumbents.
Recall that the telecommunications company recently launched its mobile money, MoMo in Nigeria which is said to be its biggest market after it was granted a banking license earlier this year. With the aim to bridge financial inclusion in Africa, as well as offer consumers the opportunity to send money across Africa with ease, MTN saw the need to dole out its mobile money app, MoMo which they believe will help solve money transfer issues.
MoMo offers MTN users a platform to send and receive cash. Users of the app can also make payments for products and services from other participating merchants using the App. According to MTN, they disclosed that the financial services and E-Commerce penetration in Africa are marginal, instead of presenting a challenge, the conditions offer an opportunity to accelerate digital disruption with financial services, remittances, lending insurance, and e-commerce.
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With the company’s recent venture into the fintech ecosystem, it has started to position itself as a major dominant player in the fintech space. They are said to be building the largest and most valuable platforms that are distinctly African digital marketplaces for the widest variety of products and services.
According to MTN, in their words; “We want to be Africa’s leading digital platform unlocking economic growth through financial and digital solutions for consumers and businesses of all sizes”.
With the strong competition currently in the Nigerian financial service space, the inclusion of MoMo will no doubt heighten it because MTN is already a strong force which already has millions of subscribers on its network which gives them a big head start. The company will pose a major threat to some greenhorn fintech systems due to its high customer base and popularity. Millions of people in Africa already use the MTN network, which means that the company could leverage on that to offer its services.
It might interest you to know that late last year, MTN entered into a Mobile money partnership with one of Africa’s leading fintech companies, Flutterwave. MTN no doubt is going into this fintech space with full force as regards its strategic collaborations. In June last year, MTN MoMo had already gotten 48.9 million active users and 581,514 merchants.
Its partnership with Flutterwave will offer its mobile money to be put as a payment option on the Flutterwave app for the company’s business customers. Indeed MTN MoMo’s journey to becoming the largest fintech platform in Africa has already started on a very bright note.
One thing I love about its partnership with Flutterwave is that there is indeed a strong advantage in collaboration. Collaboration is a powerful business tool for companies, regardless of their size or industry, which allows them to tap into the combined expertise, knowledge, and capabilities.
Rather than blindly compete, the company deemed it fit to leverage on Fluttewave’s dominance in the fintech space, which through this partnership will build a strong ecosystem and expand to reach more consumers and businesses in Africa.