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platform, called Orange Collecte, in partnership with
French charity-giving site HelloAsso.
Tangled web of Technology partnerships
There are four main technology partners used within
the field of m-money. They are Mahindra Comviva,
Tagiattitude, Pyro Mobile Money, and Verifone. These
firms collectively account for 40 percent of the
MFS partnership deals conducted in Northern and
Western Africa.
Originally launched as Bharti Telesoft in 1999,
Mahindra Comviva 6 was a subsidiary of the Bharti
Group, before Tech Mahindra acquired a controlling
stake (51 percent) of the company in 2012. In April 2010,
it worked with Maroc Telecom in Morocco to deliver
MobiCash through its award winning mobiquity
system. It deployed the same mobiquity financial
solution in 2013, in its partnership with Gabon Telcoms
(an affiliate of Marco Telecom).
In contrast to Manhindra Comviva’s interconnected
partnerships, Tagiattitude has worked predominately
with smaller or less geographically spread firms. Many
of its collaborations with: Afrimarket, Celpaid Cote
d’Ivoire, Qash Mobile Banking, and Flooz, are not
under the same corporate umbrella or connected by
history, but from both major MNOs and independent
payment service firms.
Verifone Mobile Money is another large powerful
technology provider similar to Manhindra Comviva,
Verfione Terminals in Morocco
80% of the 26,000 terminals
and has fostered working partnerships with the MTN
Group across its 16 countries of operation, enabling
customer use of MTN Mobile Money, and retail use
of its payment terminal solutions. More recently, it
has jointly worked with Bharti Airtel in Ghana bringing
contactless payment services to the latter’s 1.5 million
customers. Its coverage in both Nigeria and Morocco
is hugely impressive. In the former, Verifone claims
to work with all 12 major banks, whilst in the latter
provides 80 percent of the 26,000 terminals in use.
Government initiatives and schemes
More significantly is Verifone’s partnerships with
national bodies. In May 2008, the firm came to an
agreement with leading transaction switching and
payment firms, Ferlo and Byte Tech from Senegal.
The deal resulted in the distribution of Veriofone’s
payment solutions throughout the Union Economique
et Monetairy Ouest Africane (UEMOA) countries 7
and Cameroon.
Verifone has also worked with the Nigerian
government, first in 2012 and later in 2014. The first
deal was a systems solutions project costing $17.8
million, whilst the second project involved the roll
out of more than 100,000 devices as part of the
government’s cash-lite initiative.
MasterCard has so far worked with both the Nigerian
and Egyptian governments in developing national
identification cards for their respective citizens. In
March 2015, Egypt elected to work with MasterCard to
create digital (mobile based) IDs linked to the national
ID cards. The digital ID cards are intended to improve
P2G services in the country.
The pace of deals within the continent is fast and is
unlikely to stop as other countries outside of Kenya,
South Africa and Nigeria continue to embrace
MFS. Many of these new products and services are
moving beyond simple m-payments and transfers.
They are branching into international remittances,
investments options, savings products, and other
aspects contributing to financial deepening.
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