- Highlights MTN’s Ambition 2025 Strategy commitment, with strong emphasis on Fintech utilising the Ericsson Wallet Platform as a key channel for substantial growth.
- Agreement formalised during an executive visit by MTN Group to Ericsson Group HQ.
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.