MOBILE FINANCIAL SERVICES: Airtel Africa partners MasterCard to rival MTN’s Momo

Telecoms giant, Airtel Africa, on Wednesday, announced it had entered a partnership with multinational financial service company, MasterCard to give Airtel’s 100 million subscribers across 14 African countries access to MasterCard’s global network.

This will enable Airtel Money customers get MasterCard virtual card, even those without a bank account, to make payment to local and global merchants that accept it. In addition, customers will be able to pay for goods and services via Quick Respond (QR) codes at outlets.

Airtel Africa’s CEO, Raghunath Mandava said “Airtel and MasterCard has a shared passion for digital transformation and making mobile financial services accessible to everyone across the continent. Through our partnership, we will enable over 100 million Airtel Africa customers to make safe mobile money purchases online and in person.

READ ALSO: FG to recover N18.9 trillion backlog income from oil companies

The partnership will also significantly bolster Airtel’s position as one of the largest offline-to-online digital payment networks in Africa. We are really excited to embark on this partnership with a globally trusted brand like MasterCard. This partnership is truly revolutionary in our market, giving millions of people better access to the digital and online world”.

This might potentially give Airtel Money an edge over MTN Nigeria’s mobile money platform, Momo. MTN launched Momo almost 2 months ago giving the telecom giant an edge over traditional banks in Nigeria, but with this Airtel and MasterCard partnership Airtel Money has gone global, giving the platform a farther reach than Momo.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now