The NSE’s most-capitalised company and Nigeria’s leading telecoms services provider, MTN Nigeria Plc, yesterday launched its much anticipated mobile money transfer service called MoMo Agent Network as part of the company’s ambition to replicate in Nigeria, the success of Safaricom’s M-Pessa in Kenya.
Speaking during the launch which happened in Abuja, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Ferdi Moolman, claimed that that the newly-launched service would facilitate easier money transfer among Nigerians.
The product launch is coming barely two months after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) granted the telco a super agent license to provide banking services.
Note that MTN’s MoMo Agent Network will specifically target the unbanked population in Nigeria, specifically those remote areas without easy access to traditional financial services providers. The move is expected to contribute immensely to the CBN’s bid to actualise financial inclusion in the country.
In the meant, the company hopes to become a full-fledged financial services bank one it obtains the necessary approvals from Nigeria’s apex bank.
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MTN Nigeria’s MoMo is expected to heighten the competition in the Nigerian financial services space where Fintechs such as Paga are already playing. But the company’s main competitors would be commercial banks who have dominated the space for years.
MoMo has some advantages that could help it compete effectively. The fact that millions of Nigerians already have MTN lines means that the company can easily leverage that to offer its services. Recall that this is the same thing Kenya’s biggest telco (Safaricom) has successfully done with its M-Pesa mobile money transfer service.
The possible success of this newly-launched service means that MTN Nigeria Plc is poised for more profitability in a market it has witnessed consistent success over the years. The company’s recently-released H1 2019 financial results showed that profit after tax increased by 34.8% to N98.9 billion.
Yesterday, the company’s stock ended trading at N138.85 on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, after opening at N140.95.
