The telco says its newly-launched financial services division aims to digitise the cash that is still floating in the economy.

The telco moves into the competitive financial services space, promising to offer financial solutions to empower businesses and individuals.

Demand for data and digital services grew significantly, but the telco experienced a decline in demand for voice services in the mass market segment.

The telco’s earnings per share include the benefit from gains on the disposal of towers in Uganda and Ghana.

In the first quarter, the company added 2.9 million active data users across its operations on the continent.

The company says the impact of COVID-19 on its first quarter performance was not significant, except for delayed orders.

The World Bank projects a 20% decline in global remittances, urging service providers and authorities to introduce measures to ease use of mobile money platforms.

The transaction will accelerate M-Pesa’s growth in Africa by giving both Vodacom and Safaricom full control of the M-Pesa brand.

2019 marked a major milestone for mobile money globally, with over one billion accounts and close to $2 billion in daily transactions, says GSMA.

The big four bank is not perturbed by telecommunications companies invading its space with mobile money offerings.

Mobile Money revenue continued to grow strongly, in a year in which the company marked the 10th anniversary of MoMo in Ghana.

Analysts believe MTN’s Mobile Money platform will be a success this time as the telco has learnt from its past mistakes.