Flutterwave, MTN Group have today announced a new mobile money partnership that will benefit business owners by conducting cross-border transactions. Through the partnership, businesses integrating Flutterwave in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia will be able to receive payments via MTN Mobile Money (MoMo).
MTN MoMo is a fintech product providing consumers and businesses with an electronic wallet by enabling instant customer-customer money transfer, utility, and essential payments as well as access to digital and financial services through a single shortcode or MY MTN App.
At the end of June 2021, MTN MoMo had 48.9 million active users and over 581,514 merchants. The service also enables businesses to accept and make payments through the Momo Pay sub-service. And now, the new partnership will enable Flutterwave to offer MTN Mobile Money as a payment method to its business customers.
Through the new partnership, MTN and Flutterwave will positively contribute to the growing trend of increased mobile money usage, and penetration in Africa through improving local economies and livelihoods as well as create opportunities for customers across the continent.
Commenting on the partnership, Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, said:
“Africa has one of the highest growth rates for mobile money adoption and e-commerce in the world. It makes sense that we help provide a seamless payment method to support and ensure African businesses reap the full benefits of the e-commerce boom in the region. Our goal has always been to grow a new wave of prosperity in Africa by creating more avenues for businesses in Africa to accept payments. With this partnership, we can achieve this while creating endless possibilities for our customers.”
In agreement, Serigne Dioum, MTN Group Chief Digital and Fintech Officer commented on the new partnership and said:
“As we progress on our journey to becoming the largest fintech platform in Africa, we will empower millions of businesses to embrace e-commerce in our markets to accept digital payments from MoMo consumers. We believe this is an enabler to accelerating digitized payments in Africa. Building strong ecosystems through partnerships is central to our platform strategy and we will continue to invest in expanding the reach of our platform to consumers and businesses in Africa.”
Also, the new partnership will further expand on Flutterwave’s previous collaboration with MTN, beyond Uganda and Rwanda – with the potential of deepening the adoption of digital payments and e-commerce in Africa, a sector expected to reach $29 billion by 2022, according to Statista.