MFS Africa, which describes itself as Africa’s largest payment gateway, has announced its entry into Sierra Leone, partnering with Afrimoney, the mobile money service offered by pan-African telecommunications company Africell.
The aim will be to enable mobile money users in the country to receive payments from abroad smoothly and affordably.
As MFS explains, remittances from abroad amount to more than half of annual household consumption in Sierra Leone and therefore play an important role in economic growth. However, according to records from 2017, fewer than one in five people in Sierra Leone had a bank account at that time. Mobile money thus clearly provides an alternative to conventional finance.
With this partnership in place, mobile transfer operator customers that are connected to the MFS Africa hub – such as MoneyGram, World Remit and Xoom – can easily send money to mobile wallets in Sierra Leone. With over 320 million mobile wallets connected to MFS Africa’s hub, there is said to be an array of new cross-border payment possibilities.
Remittance is big business in Africa – and beyond. Among recent announcements, in January we discussed a strategic partnership to facilitate cross-border remittance involving Wari and Lycaremit.
MFS Africa itself partnered with global money transfer start-up PaySii to help facilitate remittances in sub-Saharam Africa, and moved into north Africa with Morocco’s inwi money last September.
