UBA, MFS Africa Partner Digital Payments, Remittances

Africa’s Global Bank, the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, and MFS Africa, Africa’s largest digital payments hub, have announced a partnership to offer innovative and timely solutions to a wide range of customers, especially in the area of remittances, electronic money services, SME payments, as well as integration to businesses for cross border payments.

These services are expected to cover the 20 African countries UBA operates in, which include Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Republic of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Mali and Senegal.

Both organisations signed an MoU at the UBA Head Office in Lagos last Tuesday, heralding the start of a partnership that will be pivotal in leveraging MFS Africa’s digital payment hub that connects over 400 million mobile money users to a wide range of partners, including Mobile Money Operators, Money Transfer Organisations, Fintechs, Enterprise Merchants and others to drive distribution of financial services at scale.

UBA Group Deputy Managing Director, Muyiwa Akinyemi, who spoke during the signing ceremony, expressed his excitement at the plethora of offerings that UBA customers will enjoy from the partnership.

According to him, “We are very pleased to be partnering MFS Africa in this venture that will see us offering seamless digital solutions to most of the financial challenges of our customers. UBA is ready and with the value that MFS Africa is known for, we are indeed set to dominate the entire banking space in Africa.”

Akinyemi explained that the partnership would help to boost an array of services which will include a centralised payment hub that enables cross-border payments across multiple rails through a single integration; Inbound and Outbound cross border remittances; SME Payments Digitisation; Domestic and Cross Border Corporate Disbursements; Remittance Africa China Corridor, Bin Sponsorship and Web Acquiring.

Speaking on behalf of MFS Africa, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Dare Okoudjou said: “As the payments landscape in Africa continues to evolve, we believe that fintechs and banks need to have a deeper collaboration in expanding opportunities that will help ease remittance, payments, disbursements and collections for businesses and their consumers across all sectors of the economy in Africa.

“This is why we are delighted to welcome UBA as our new pan-African banking partner. We are aware of the strengths and capabilities of UBA which is why we will be working together towards expanding access to more possibilities for millions of African consumers and businesses across the 20 countries they are present in Africa.”