Two years after pulling the plug on its Mobile Money service in South Africa, MTN Group plans to relaunch the service in South Africa, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.
Business Day reported earlier on Tuesday that MTN plans to relaunch Mobile Money in South Africa and Nigeria in the first half of 2019.
The publication quoted group CEO Rob Shuter as saying he was confident the company could “make it work”. It would be aimed at the unbanked segment of the market that is reliant on cash for payments, Business Day said.
MTN pulled the plug on mobile money in South Africa in September 2016, four months after rival Vodacom South Africa did the same with its mobile payments platform M-Pesa.
“Following much deliberation, MTN South Africa has taken a decision to decommission its Mobile Money offering due to lack of commercial viability,” the company said in a statement at the time.
MTN South Africa first launched its Mobile Money platform in 2012.
“This included MTN partnering with Pick n Pay and Boxer to offer its money remittance platform. The Mobile Money platform gained traction by attracting over two million registered customers,” the operator said.
Despite this, the operating costs of providing a mobile money platform had become prohibitive, it said. — (c) 2018 NewsCentral Media
- This is a developing story