MTN Nigeria Communications Plc’s payment unit, MoMo Payment Service Bank (MoMo PSB), has registered 1.2 million active MoMo wallets from January 1 to March 31.
The CEO of MTN Nigeria, Karl Toriola, revealed this information in the financial result for the first quarter of 2023. Toriola said that the company has expanded its agent network by adding over 40,000 active agents, bringing the total number to approximately 264,000.
“We continued to progress in building our fintech ecosystem and executing its growth strategy by reopening the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) interface for inbound and outbound transfers and strengthening our control systems, enabling us to accelerate full commercial activities and grow active wallets,” the CEO said.
The limited availability of new notes resulted in cash shortages, which impacted the customers’ ability to recharge through physical airtime vouchers, affecting mostly customers who did not have access to digital recharge channels, and over-the-counter (OTC) transactions within the MoMo agent network. This affected the broader macroeconomy, with a significant impact on the private sector.
“As a result, active MoMo PSB wallets rose by 1.2 million in Q1 to 3.2 million, accounting for 43.2 percent of our fintech users. However, the impact of the cash shortages during the period slowed OTC transactions, resulting in a 31.1 percent reduction in our total fintech users to 7.4 million. However, our base began to recover towards the end of March as cash shortages eased,” MTN reported in the Q1 statement.
The company’s financial results also showed that its active data users increased by 14.7 percent to 41.2 million in Q1 2023, and active fintech subscribers rose by 8.6 percent. The growth was led by revenue from MTN’s core fintech services, such as wallet and super-agent business. The statement further disclosed that total data traffic increased by 50.3 percent, while 4G traffic constitutes 81.6 percent, up by 5.5pp. Additionally, MTN rolled out an additional 170 5G sites in Q1, bringing the population coverage to 4 percent and expanding the network experience to more smartphone users.
