MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) platform that has been useful for the people of Côte D’Ivoire for the past three months has now launched in Nigeria! It is the biggest market and Africa’s most populous nation, targeting those without a bank account. It is to provide financial services across the country.
At the launching ceremony on Thursday, August 29 in Abuja, MTN Nigeria said it is going to deepen financial inclusion with the launch of MoMo Agent in Abuja and other parts of the northern states.
Sending and Receiving money has never been this easy, with MoMo Agents you can now send and receive money anywhere in Nigeria. Amazing Right? #YelloMoment #MomoAgent4U pic.twitter.com/7GZGyHhwpw
— MTN Nigeria (@MTNNG) August 29, 2019
The telco registered the new subsidiary with the Corporate Affairs Commission in 2018 and obtained a super-agent licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria in July. It was gathered that the super-agent licence would enable the telco to facilitate domestic payments for over 65 million subscribers in Nigeria using phone numbers. The licence issued on Thursday, July 25, 2019, according to the company, would enable it to join the league of financial technology companies that are accelerating financial inclusion in the country through an agent network. Some key pointers of the operation on takeoff shall be:
- Customers send a text for free and get a response giving them a list of registered agents near them.
- Customers pay the transfer sum to agents who in turn give them a code to be transmitted to the receiver. The receiver goes to an agent near them and collects the cash.
- The sender will pay N100 though. N50 will go to the sending agent and the paying agent will also get N50.
- The minimum amount that can be transferred is N100 and the maximum is either N50,000 or N100,000 depending on the agent.
- The recipient must claim the money within 30 days or the voucher will expire.
A key issue raised by a former top civil servant has been the N100 charge on a transaction which he says is about double the N52 charged on mobile banking transactions. With MTN MoMo, you can use it to send and receive money, top-up MTN airtime, pay bills (DStv, ECG Postpaid, MTN Postpaid, School fees and more), buy & pay for insurance, pay employee salaries, pay for airline tickets and other goods and services.
