17 July 2022

The Bank of Mozambique said it has interconnected the three mobile wallets used in the country - Vodacom's M-Pesa; Tmcel's mKesh and Movitel's e-Mola - so that customers of these platforms can transfer and receive money between them in a convenient and secure manner.

This initiative of the Central Bank of Mozambique comes in a particular context marked the increase and adoption of the use of mobile money services in Africa, where a large part of the population is still unbanked. According to the GSMA, mobile money transactions on the continent reached US$701bn last year, which is an increase of 41% compared to the previous year with more than 36 billion transactions processed.

"Following the expansion of the cell phone network, an opportunity has been created for the expansion of access and use of financial services provided by electronic money institutions in Mozambique," explains the Bank of Mozambique in a statement.

The bank described the deal as an important milestone, as the interoperability of M-Pesa, mKesh and e-Mola operations marks a significant step that will promote the development of financial services in Mozambique while reducing cost. "With this achievement, we have reached one of the main objectives of the national financial inclusion strategy for the period 2016-2022, which will certainly contribute in an undeniable way to the expansion of electronic payments in the country," it added.