MFS Africa has partnered with Mvola, Madagascar’s mobile money service, to facilitate inbound international money transfers. The partnership aims to further enhance financial inclusion and enable economic development in the country.
The partnership will see MFS Africa become the first aggregator to go live with the mobile money wing of Telma, Madagascar’s leading Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), which has a 70% market share. It will enable the seamless flow of remittances from Europe, the US, and the UK. The partnership will also facilitate MNO to MNO remittances to Madagascar from the rest of Africa.
“Providing financial services to Madagascar has long been regarded as costly and challenging due to its predominantly rural landscape and infrastructural limitations. This means that consumers in the country have been historically underserved by traditional financial institutions,” Group Head of Growth at MFS Africa, Nika Naghavi. “But, by bringing our ever-expanding API suite to a market leader such as MVola, we will be able to unlock new corridors for international payments to flow seamlessly between Malagasy mobile money accounts and the rest of the world.”
Madagascar currently has over 10 million mobile money accounts, significantly more than the number of traditional bank accounts. More than a third of the population now able to use mobile money for everything from paying bills and peer-to-peer transactions to saving or borrowing.
“This is why it is so important that people in the country are able to instantly receive remittances from their families abroad into their mobile money accounts,” Chief Commercial Officer at MVola, Sidali Stiti. “By joining forces with MFS Africa, we will be better able to deliver on our commitment to provide access to affordable and quality financial services to every Malagasy.”
Launched in 2010, MVola contributes to the financial inclusion of all Malagasy by giving them access to digital services, such as bill and merchant payments, domestically. In 2018. MVola became the first Electronic Money Institution in Madagascar and obtained a banking license in 2021, becoming the country’s first digital bank.