Flutterwave, MTN Partner on Mobile Money

By Emma Okonji

Flutterwave, Africa’s payment technology company, has announced a mobile money partnership with MTN Group, that will allow businesses that are integrating Flutterwave in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia, to receive payments via MTN Mobile Money, called MoMo.

MTN MoMo is a fintech platform providing consumers and businesses with an electronic wallet, enabling electronic transfers and payments as well as access to digital and financial services.

At the end of June 2021, MTN MoMo had 48.9 million active users and 581,514 merchants. MoMo enables businesses to accept and make payments within the mobile money ecosystem. The new partnership will enable Flutterwave to offer MTN Mobile Money as a payment method to its business customers.

In recent years, Africa has witnessed an explosion in mobile penetration as smartphone adoption has risen rapidly. According to the GSMA, this year, Africa would hit the half a billion mark of unique mobile subscribers and the continent would reach 50 per cent subscriber penetration by 2025. The sub-Saharan Africa alone is responsible for more than 45 per cent of the world’s mobile money accounts with the number of account holders exceeding half a billion by 2020, as shared on Statista.

Through the partnership, MTN and Flutterwave will positively contribute to this trend by increasing mobile money usage and penetration in Africa to improve local economies and livelihoods as well as create opportunities for individuals and businesses across the continent.

Commenting on the partnership, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, Olugbenga Agboola, 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.”

Group Chief Digital and Fintech Officer at MTN, Serigne Dioum, 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.”

The new partnership will further expand on Flutterwave’s previous collaboration with MTN, beyond Uganda and Rwanda, with the potential of deepening adoption of digital payments and e-commerce in Africa, a sector expected to reach $29 billion by 2022, according to Statista.