Airtel Nigeria’s SmartCash Payment Service Bank (PSB) recorded 1.5 million active users at the end of March 2024.
The parent company, Airtel Africa, disclosed this in its financial result for the year ended March 31, 2024. Presenting the records of its Nigerian mobile money business for the first time, Airtel said that the annualized transaction value for SmartCash PSB grew by 15% in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024 (Airtel’s financial year Q4) compared to the quarter ended December 2023.
In addition, the company said the PSB added almost 39,000 agents during the quarter, reaching almost 205,000 agents as of 31 March 2024.
According to data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Airtel Nigeria’s active mobile subscriptions stood at 63.4 million as of March 2024, indicating huge potential for the company’s mobile money business.
Airtel Africa mobile money
Across its operations in 14 African countries, Airtel said its mobile money customer base grew to 38 million customers at the end of March. This made SmartCash’s customer base 4% of the Group’s mobile money customers.
Despite its current number of customers, Airtel expressed confidence in its mobile money business in Nigeria, saying it would continue to build and grow it.
“Our Nigeria PSB licence remains an opportunity for the Group. During this year, we accelerated our customer acquisition strategy and our customer base is 1.5 million active customers. We continue to build the ecosystem to grow our transaction value,” the company stated.
Across Africa, Airtel said it would continue to leverage the low penetration of traditional banking services and the large number of unbanked customers to boost its mobile money business. whose needs can be largely fulfilled through mobile money services.
“We aim to drive the uptake of Airtel Money services in all our markets, harnessing the ability of our profitable mobile money business model to enhance financial inclusion in some of the most ‘unbanked’ populations in the world,” it said.
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Airtel’s Smartcash PSB was issued a Payment Service Bank (PSB) licence by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2022 alongside the three other mobile network operators, MTN (MoMo PSB), Glo (Moneymaster PSB), and 9mobile (9PSB) to deepen financial inclusion in the country.
The CBN granted PSB license to entities and investors who seek to comply with its policies and obtain its objective, to enhance financial inclusion by increasing access to deposit products, payments, and remittance services to individuals, small businesses, low-income households and other financially excluded entities.
In October last year, SmartCash partnered with Thunes, a cross-border payments infrastructure provider, to allow its customers to receive international remittances in naira to their mobile wallets.
According to the Managing Director of Smartcash PSB, Muyiwa Ebitanmi, through the partnership, the company can solve the problem of receiving funds from family and friends abroad.
He added that the service would also help those financially excluded by providing a hassle-free and efficient solution for individuals in the diaspora looking to send money quickly to their loved ones in Nigeria.
