MTN South Africa Is Canceling Mobile Money Platform

Taking a page from competitor Vodacom South Africa, MTN South Africa is canceling its mobile payments platform, Mobile Money.

According to a report, the move comes a few weeks after reports surfaced that it halted signing on new Mobile Money customers in order to gauge the feasibility of the product.

“Following much deliberation, MTN South Africa has taken a decision to decommission its Mobile Money offering due to lack of commercial viability,” the company said in a statement on Thursday (Sept. 15), according to the report. The move does not affect its financial services offerings in other markets in which it operates, it noted. The Mobile Money platform was launched in 2012 and has been updated and improved upon since then. It even attracted over 2 million registered customers, but despite that, the operating costs of the mobile payments platform has become too prohibitive for the company.

MTN Chief Consumer Officer Larry Annetts said in the report that the decision to cancel the Mobile Money service doesn’t mean the company is completely exiting the financial services market. “MTN is still committed to remaining a significant player in the financial services space, and we are exploring opportunities [here and in] adjacent sectors,” Annetts added. The company said it’s working with Mobile Money partners to make sure their customers aren’t negatively impacted by the decision.

At a time when MTN South Africa is throwing in the towel, Visa is eyeing another part of the African continent. Visa is gathering a consortium of Kenyan banks to create a service that is essentially a shot across the bow at M-Pesa. Dubbed mVisa, it allows consumers to access bank accounts in order to make payments. Thus far, the Kenyan banks that have signed onto the service include NIC Bank, Family Bank, KCB and Co-Operative Bank. The transactions will be run across the Visa network, and as such, those sending and those receiving funds can be from disparate banks or mobile operators.