Changing Lives
group has launched money transfer between
its mobile money customers in Cote d'Ivoire,
Niger, Togo, Benin and Burkina Faso. The
transactions are completely digital as the
money transfers take place instantly from
sender's mobile money wallet in one country
to recipient's mobile money wallet in the
other country. Mobile money based international
remittance are almost 60% cheaper than
services offered by traditional money transfer
operators. Due to ease-of-use, convenience
and affordability, mobile money based interna-
tional services have gained significant traction
in the region. There are 23 live mobile money
based international remittance corridors in
West Africa. West Africa constitutes 63% of all
mobile money based international remittance
transactions globally.
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September 2017
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MNOs are also innovating and evolving the
merchant payment offering. Orange Money
Côte d'Ivoire and MTN Mobile Money Benin
have launched NFC-based merchant payment
services. They have provided NFC POS to
merchants and NFC sticker to customers linked
with their mobile money wallet. Customers
just tap the sticker over POS to make payments.
Orange Money is Senegal has launched a
GIM UEMOA credit card. GIM-UEMOA is the
WAEMU Interbank Card Processing Grouping.
The card can be used by Orange Money
customers to pay at GIM-UEMOA POS and
withdraw money at GIM-UEMOA ATMs in
the WAEMU region.
School fee payments in Côte d'Ivoire
Côte d'Ivoire is one of the biggest success stories of school fee payments using mobile money. The Ministry of
National and Technical Education (MENET) partnered with four accredited mobile money providers in the country and
made it mandatory for secondary school students to pay their school registration fees digitally. The impact of these
collaborations and the adoption of digital payments have been phenomenal. In academic year 2015-16, 99.3% of
Côte d'Ivoire's 1.7 million secondary school students paid their annual school registration fee via various mobile
money services.
The service has provided convenience to parents as they can now focus on their work, rather than worry about paying
fees. The service has also benefited MENET and schools in multiple ways. Digitization of fee payments has reduced
cash handling costs as well as incidences of armed robberies, which was very commonplace before the introduction
of digital payments. Secondly, with mobile money, school fees are now collected in full, and that too much earlier in
the year, which means that schools have more access to funds function properly and provide better learning
conditions to students and working conditions to teachers. Lastly, digital registration of secondary school students
allowed MENET to consolidate its student database, eliminate duplicate entries and significantly increasing the
quality of its information.
Source: GSMA
Every growing business has challenges and
mobile money is no different. Despite being
the dominant player in mobile money business,
MNOs often complain about rigidity of bank
partners. Hence, some MNOs are creating
dedicated subsidiaries to become e-money
issuers themselves. For eg., Orange has become
e-money issuer in three countries in WAEMU
region: Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire and Mali.