MTN is setting its sights on one of Africa’s most difficult fintech opportunities: South Africa’s large cash-based payments economy. The telecom giant wants its Mobile Money (MoMo) platform to move beyond its traditional mobile-money markets and become a broader financial services platform for consumers, merchants and small businesses.
The strategy comes as MTN sees growing momentum in its fintech business. In the first half of 2026, MoMo recorded 70.8 million monthly active users across MTN’s markets, while fintech transactions reached 13 billion, worth $330.5 billion.
South Africa, however, presents a different challenge from markets where mobile money became popular because banking services were limited. The country has a sophisticated banking sector, widespread card payments and an increasingly competitive digital-finance ecosystem. Yet cash remains important for many consumers and informal businesses, creating an opportunity for services that can make digital payments simpler and more accessible.
MTN’s approach is therefore not simply to replace bank accounts. Instead, the company is positioning MoMo as a broader transactional and financial platform. Users can store money, transfer funds, pay merchants, settle bills and access other financial services through the platform. In South Africa, MoMo also supports cash-in and cash-out through MTN stores and agents, helping connect physical cash with digital transactions.
The company believes evolving national payments infrastructure could make this expansion easier. MTN Group fintech chief executive Serigne Dioum said the rapidly developing payments infrastructure is something the company wants to leverage to penetrate the South African market.
That shift is important because MTN is increasingly treating fintech as a major growth engine rather than an add-on to its telecommunications business. Fintech transaction value rose 33.8% in constant-currency terms during the first half of 2026, while the number of active fintech agents reached 1.4 million and active merchants surpassed 2.3 million.
MoMo has already shown signs of traction in South Africa. By April 2025, the platform had reached 13 million registered users, demonstrating that MTN has built a sizeable potential customer base even though converting registration into regular transactions remains the bigger challenge.
The opportunity extends beyond payments. MTN is exploring lending, remittances and other financial services, while the company has also indicated interest in banking licences in selected markets as it expands deeper into financial services.
For MTN, South Africa could ultimately become a test of whether the MoMo model can succeed in a mature financial market. If the company can persuade cash-dependent consumers and informal merchants to move more transactions onto its platform, MoMo could become an important bridge between South Africa’s cash economy and its increasingly digital financial future.
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