Airtel Africa is spinning off its mobile money arm in a strategy that the service’s CEO, Vimal Kumar, says seeks “to unleash the power of mobile money.” Africa is the world leader in mobile money in many respects, and the growth of mobile money in the continent has led telecom firms to discuss further unlocking their value by spinning off the services to become standalone financial entities. The UK’s Vodafone Group Plc, which created M-Pesa with the Kenyan telco Safaricom, last year hinted it could spin off the mobile money service. Last May, Safaricom reported that its M-Pesa mobile money service had overtaken voice services to become its biggest revenue source for the year ended March 2020. Also last year, South Africa’s MTN Group said it is considering spinning off its financial services units, whose revenue increased by more than any other unit’s for the quarter ended September 2021.
SOURCE: QUARTZ AFRICA
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