The adoption of mobile financial services has accelerated as it increasingly becomes a tool to mitigate the use of cash amid the global Covid-19 pandemic and many operators waive or reduce certain fees in response to a subsequent global economic contraction.

As part of telecommunication group MTN’s Y’ello Hope response to Covid-19, some 120-million peer-to-peer Mobile Money (MoMo) transactions, valued at R43-billion, have been zero-rated, says MTN Group executive for mobile financial services Serigne Dioum.

This emerges as an evolution gets under way in terms of the type and volume of MoMo transactions after many countries adopted partial or total lockdowns in response to the spread of Covid-19.

“We saw a significant increase in MoMo Pay merchant and bill payments, despite an initial decline in MoMo agent transactions, owing to the restrictions. However, we have already started to see a gradual increase as restrictions have been eased.”

This has enabled an acceleration and scaling of cashless and digital economies and assisted many consumers and businesses across MTN’s 16 MoMo markets to transact and accept payments remotely, allowing them to continue operating despite lockdowns, he says.

The majority of Africa’s population were unbanked prior to the introduction of mobile financial services, leading to the continent boasting the fastest growth of the service anywhere else in the world.

“Without bank accounts, people could not easily access credit and had no way of paying bills or transferring money electronically. Mobile financial services have improved access and the use of accounts, underpinning many of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals,” Dioum explains.

“We see this as a significant opportunity to change the outlook for affordable, inclusive, understandable and comprehensive financial services in Africa and the Middle East,” he says, noting that MTN’s ambition is to transition to an end-to-end platform, creating a digital marketplace and connecting consumers to businesses and businesses to other businesses.

The group has developed a low-cost payment acceptance solution for small retailers, enabling customers with feature phones to make payments using their MoMo wallets by dialling a USSD code or by using the MoMo App for smartphone owners.

MoMo Pay is now offered through multiple channels, including face-to-face, ecommerce and m-commerce, as well as on the application, and is live across ten markets, with 250 000 merchants and 2.1-million active users.

At the end of March 2020, MTN Group had 35.1-million active MoMo customers, an increase of 400 000 from December 2019.

“In the first quarter, we accelerated our MoMo agency network in Nigeria under our super-agent licence, adding 70 000 agents, to bring the total number of registered agents to 178 000,” he explains.