06 March 2023

The Congolese government has signed a partnership agreement with Mediasoft Lafayette, which specializes in electronic banking. The agreement aims to make the MTN Mobile Money and Airtel Money digital financial services platforms interoperable with merchant accounts.

Mediasoft Lafayette will rely on the Congo-Pay platform, an AI-based payment platform developed by TerraPay for the Congolese government. Its function is to aggregate all the payment methods existing at the national level and to standardize them. The platform could also serve as a base for setting up electronic money.

This initiative is part of the ambition of the head of state, Denis Sassou N’Guesso, who has made the digital economy one of the six pillars of the National Development Plan (PND) 2020-2026.

Once finalized, the interoperability of mobile payment services should facilitate mobile financial transactions while reducing costs, contributing to greater financial inclusion of the Congolese people. According to data from ARPCE, the Congolese mobile money market had approximately 2.8 million active subscribers as of June 2022. This figure represents a penetration rate of 50.6%, compared to 49.5% in the same period of 2021.