Mastercard’s Giant African Partnership with MTN

It’s a significant move that complements the focus on emerging fintech in Africa. Mastercard is to acquire a minority stake in MTN’s fintech division. This partnership with MTN appears as a Memorandum of Understanding announced in the company’s 2023 group results for the first half of the year.

Due diligence is currently underway, and the agreement is expected to be finalized very soon.

The consumer face of MTN Group Fintech is MOMO (MTN Mobile Money). This is an app which empowers the user to apply for loans, insurance and other ecommerce functions. It is tremendously popular across 17 countries on the African continent and 70 million users.

An empowering partnership

Once Mastercard’s giant African partnership with MTN is in place, Mastercard card holders (if they choose), can link payments to their MOMO wallets. The cards will be virtual, in line with a growing global movement away from plastic. Also, MTN Group merchants will now accept Mastercard payments.

This is an ‘everyone wins’ situation because the South African telco giant can expand their services through Mastercard’s African network. While the global payment processing company takes the high ground over VISA on a continent fast-tracking its digitalization. And the consumer is now able to access services and products with the same convenience as the rest of the developed world.

MTN is the latest in a long line of African-based companies who understand they can achieve growth and prosperity much quicker through collaboration and much of this joint effort comes from within the continent. Others, like this Mastercard deal, comes from outside of Africa.

There have been recent problems that include the fluctuations of the Nigerian Naira and the South African Rand against the dollar. This shows the need for new thinking about the upliftment of the underserved and underbanked.

It’s events like Mastercard’s giant African partnership with MTN that keep the momentum moving.

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