MTN, Ecobank partner on Africa’s financial inclusion

IN the bid to increase the level of financial inclusion across the continent, MTN and Ecobank have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to put together expertise and advocate more patronage of digitalised financial services. Both multinationals admitted they have an enormous area of collaborations with their presence across the continent, which can aid the expansion drive for financial inclusion with the best products.

At the signing of the MOU in Lagos, the Group President and Chief Executive Officer, MTN Group, Rob Shuter, said both organisations can accelerate the efforts to bring financial inclusion to the market, which would enable the man on the street to enjo y better financial services with their mobile operator. He said Ecobank is a representative of many of Africa’s market where MTN operates, hence they share similar objective portfolio to work together on mobile connection services, which would allow for safe and easy mobile businesses across board, as well as simple transactional services for customers.

Also the Group Chief Executive Officer, Ecobank Transnational Inc., Ade Ayeyemi, stated that both companies are tr ying to translate the assets (mobile phones) in the hands of customers to points of presents, where they can access financial services, instead of always going tobanks.

“Almost every Nigerian and African today has a mobile phone,” he said.

Ayeyemi explained that with MTN providing access to data and Internet services, which is available on the average customer’s device and the fact that they can communicate with their phones, “we would now utilise their phones to deliver avoidable monetary services across board.”

The Ecobank boss remarked that the best way to solve the problem of financial inclusion is by leveraging on expertise and the best a vailable technology to provide profitable solutions. Remittance to Africa he said is one of the most expensive and its due to the way people want to continue to use physical cash, he however was optimistic that with such a platform, transportation of cash would be safe.

The MOU, which has no time bound, according to MTN, is a ground breaking move to reach over a billion Africans, where their phones would be converted to bank branches to access financial solutions.