Olayemi R. Ibrahim
23 December 2011
About 50,000 mobile banking agents are set to be deployed across the country within the next 12 months by the Fortis Microfinance Bank.
The Managing Director of Fortis Mobile Money, Henry Nwawuba said this at the official launch of the firm’s mobile money product in Lagos.
He said the bank is committed to rolling out unrestricted financial services to over 30 million Nigerians on the MTN network in the next 12 months.
Nwawuba said that the mobile banking firm, in partnership with MTN mobile network will also extend the service to the south-west, the north and south-east without which he said mobile money will not work.
“We have started the launch in Lagos but very rapidly as transactions take off, you will see us going to the South-west, the North, the North-central, South-east and other zones to build a robust system,” he said.
He further said that the opening up of a mobile network by MTN will yield a significant achievement.
“Everybody in Nigeria is looking for a kind of access that telecom networks provide in mobile money. MTN is opening up a mobile network with network infrastructure that will give us the kind of access that would be user friendly to all our customers,” Nwawuba said.
The Chief Executive Officer, MTN Nigeria, Brett Goschen said that the product would transform the Nigerian economy and help mobile money users to be able to transfer money, pay bills, and top up on air time and shop- all from their mobile phone.
He stressed that mobile money represented another opportunity to bring additional added value to its growing subscriber base, adding that the use of mobile money product would not only improve the quality of the people’s lives but also encourage banking as opposed to storing ones earnings in cash.
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