MTN and Ericsson Win the Mobile Financial Services Mastery Award

MTN and Ericsson have won the Mobile Financial Services Mastery Award at the 2022 Global Telecom (Glotel) Awards, held in London, England. The award recognizes MTN’s Mobile Money Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), and the innovation and excellence from the companies in advancing and transforming today’s telecommunications industry.

MTN Mobile Money (MoMo), powered by the Ericsson Wallet Platform, is a fintech solution that is  actively used by over 63 million people in 17 markets. In the third quarter of 2022, MTN MoMo registered an increase of 23.3 per cent in the number of active users from 2021 and a 32.7 per cent increase in transaction volumes to 9.5 billion transactions.

To accelerate the growth of mobile financial services growth, and to encourage innovation in Africa, MTN made its MoMo platform available for third parties by launching the MoMo Open API platform and developer portal. The MTN MoMo Open APIs creates an inclusive partner ecosystem by providing all developers and programmers complimentary access to the MTN Mobile Money proprietary software platform. This enables developers and programmers to create innovative digital financial services and applications, meeting the growing financial needs in Africa.

We are delighted to receive the Glotel Award with our technology partner Ericsson for MTN Mobile Money Open APIs. This award is a testament to the great impact Mobile Money Open APIs are making in accelerating fintech innovation in Africa. Through Mobile Money APIs, we have created an inclusive ecosystem that is open for everyone to join to increase both the commercial and social benefits of mobile financial services.

Cedric Nguessan, Executive-Group Fintech Business Development, MTN

The MoMo Developer portal provides an API sandbox that allows developers to thoroughly test their applications, before going live in production. The portal also digitalizes documentation, thereby expediting the process, and provides developer support.

This award reinforces MTN’s position in the facilitation of mobile financial services as well as Ericsson’s capability to deliver a state-of-the-art mobile wallet platform. Together, MTN and Ericsson are driving the transformation to provide more open, secure, and easily accessible mobile money platforms, thus building a more interconnected and transparent financial ecosystem.

Hossam Kandeel, Vice President and Head of Global Customer Unit MTN and Customer Unit MTN Africa, Ericsson

The MoMo API platform was launched by MTN and Ericsson in 2018 in Uganda and has been extended to more countries, including Ghana, Zambia, Cameroon, Eswatini, Ivory Coast, Benin, Rwanda, Guinea-Conakry, Congo, South Africa, and Liberia. Currently, 23,961 developers are working on extending their innovations with MTN MoMo Open APIs in the platform’s sandbox and 1,656 partners are live in production. MTN MoMo Open APIs have helped to successfully process more than 287.5 million financial transactions in 2022.