MTN customers across 21 African countries will now be able to receive and send western Union money from their MTN mobile money accounts.

The South Africa-based MTN Group has announced a commercial agreement with Western Union to introduce international mobile remittance services within Africa and from Africa to the rest of the world.

A statement from the MTN group indicates that the service will make its debut in Uganda, where MTN Mobile Money already boasts more than one million registered users – reportedly one of the largest mobile banking deployments in the world to date.

The service will then be co-piloted in countries including Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Rwanda and South Africa.

The Mobile Money service has revolutionarised the financial sector in Uganda, with customers now able to bank on their mobile phones, send money and buy airtime and pay utility bills using their mobile money accounts.

Khalid Fellahi of Western Union

MTN Uganda announced in a separate message today that MTN mobile money customers will now be able to use their phones (mobile money) to buy groceries, a move expected to attract more people to find use of the mobile money service.

The company said it has launched a promotion in which customers who deposit, withdraw or purchase using their mobile money accounts stand a chance to win 1 million Uganda shillings daily, with 10 million shillings up for grabs every week.

For Western Union which has traditionally offered money transfer services across the globe, the MTN agreement is a smart move to ensure technology doesn’t make them irrelevant as mobile money will cut the usual distances people have been traveling to a western union agent (mostly banks) to pick their money when it is sent.

To this end, Western Union says it has already started offering Mobile Money Transfer service through Smart Communications and Globe Telecom in the Philippines; Safaricom in Kenya and Maxis in Malaysia, with additional agreements pending with EnStream in Canada and the State Bank of India.

“The Western Union Mobile Money Transfer service is a key part of our multi-channel strategy to offer our consumers numerous ways to send and receive money. This alliance with MTN – one of the world’s most successful mobile operators – will introduce cross-border remittances to an entirely new segment of customers by allowing them to send and receive money using just their mobile phones’,” Khalid Fellahi, Western Union’s Head of Mobile Transaction Services said.

It is expected that the mobile money transfers will further facilitate the sending of remittances by African diaspora, which has been the major market of Weestern Union for years. In addition to facilitating mobile money transfer across Africa and the globe in general, the MTN Western Union agreement is expected to spur other mobile payment systems to bring African trade better benefits from immediate international transactions and payments.

Weinformers Media