Former potential bedfellows MTN and Bharti Airtel have joined forces again, but this time to launch a cross-border remittance partnership that aims to remove the hassles of transferring money between Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso for the operators' mobile money customers on either side of the border.
Four-and-a-half years ago, the companies ended their second attempt at a merger, citing regulatory hurdles as the reason for the end of talks, which would have created what would have then been the world's third-largest cellular operator.
Now, the cellular giants have teamed up to enable MTN Ivory Coast and Airtel Burkina Faso mobile money customers "to easily transfer money between the neighbouring countries," says a statement released by MTN. "Until now, moving money between the two countries was mired by high fees, high usage of informal channels, and a lack of proximity to withdraw money."
MTN is Africa's largest cellular operator, with networks in 22 countries on the continent, Asia and the Middle East, with a total of 207.8 million subscribers. Indian Airtel has 20 operations in Asia and Africa, and more than 289 million subscribers.
The groups say they both "already enjoy great adoption of mobile money services" and "connecting their operations through remittance services appears a logical next step".
MTN group chief commercial officer, Pieter Verkade, says there is a "sizeable community of Burkinabe working in Ivory Coast and sending money back to their home country".
Airtel Africa group director for Airtel Money, Chidi Okpala, says the "partnership between Airtel and MTN is quite symbolic; the first time that two leading providers of mobile money services are cooperating to offer a service".
Okpala adds this is also the first cross-border mobile-to-mobile remittance service in West Africa. At the end of 2013, MTN Mobile Money had 14.8 million registered users, and was available in 14 countries. Airtel's market share was not disclosed.
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