Telecom firm MTN wants to offer mobile banking in Africa’s most populous country Nigeria from next year.
The Chief Executive Officer of the South African Conglomerate, Rob Shuter told a gathering in South Africa that “We will be applying for a payment service banking license in Nigeria in the next month or so.”
“And if all goes according to plan, we will also be launching Mobile Money in Nigeria probably around Q2 of 2019,” Rob Shuter told a telecoms conference in Cape Town.
Nigeria last month revealed that it would allow Telco’s to provide banking services, aiming to give millions of Nigerians without bank accounts access to mobile money services, a policy that has been very successful in Kenya.
MTN currently runs Nigeria’s biggest mobile phone network serving 56 million people, but it is also involved in a dispute with the authorities after the central bank said it illegally transferred $8.1 billion overseas.
It is unclear whether a $2 billion Nigerian tax bill against the firm could affect its chances in acquiring the license.
Nigeria is MTN’s biggest market with more than 64 million customers, and the company reported a margin of 43% on its Nigerian earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in the third quarter.
Source: Africafeeds.com
