{"id":654117,"date":"2026-06-17T09:01:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=654117"},"modified":"2026-06-17T09:12:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:12:40","slug":"small-pet-project-started-in-2006-which-will-drive-mtns-financial-growth-over-the-next-5-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business-telecoms\/654117-small-pet-project-started-in-2006-which-will-drive-mtns-financial-growth-over-the-next-5-years.html","title":{"rendered":"Small “pet project” started in 2006 which will drive MTN’s financial growth over the next 5 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ricus Reeders, securities wealth manager at PSG Wealth, said that MTN Group will significantly benefit from the growth of financial technology in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTN recently announced it would launch a new financial super app in its major market, Nigeria, ahead of a wider rollout across the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reeders said that Africa is the fastest-growing fintech market globally, expected to grow five times over the next five years, and that MTN will be a major driver of that growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTN Group’s fintech offering is centred on its Mobile Money (MoMo) platform, an app that has faced its share of challenges since its launch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would become MoMo was the brainchild of Benin native, Dare Okoudjou, who would eventually join MTN Group’s strategy team in Johannesburg in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okoudjou pitched early MoMo ideas to the group’s executives amid a period when MTN’s Banking product was losing money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“MTN Banking was way ahead of its time, but it had a number of fundamental drawbacks: those with bank accounts didn’t need another account,” he said in an MTN blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Meanwhile, those without accounts just wanted a simple money transfer solution.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okoudjou thought of a solution, a mobile-focused, digital money transfer and fintech platform that would cost less than larger infrastructure investments and banking products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, MTN Group was solely focused on growing its traditional airtime business, so MoMo “felt like a distraction, some sort of pet project,” said Okoudjou.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this, he and his team persevered with the idea and kept pitching the solution to the executive committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Okoudjou estimated that it could be worth the equivalent of some 4% of the Group’s then revenue \u2013 about as valuable as SMS,” MTN said previously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Not everyone on the exco was convinced, but most did see benefits over and above the immediate financial bottom line.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would become MoMo would reduce churn, lower distribution costs, and support MTN Group’s agenda of inclusion and digital transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But no one at the time thought it would become a massive thing,” said Okoudjou.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early days of MTN MoMo<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Dare Okoudjou, the father of MTN MoMo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The MoMo platform was finally up and running by 2009, initially launching across MTN’s West and Central African markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okoudjou’s brainchild received a major backer in the form of Christian de Faria, who at the time was the executive in charge of those markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uganda and Rwanda were the first countries to see MoMo after De Faria drove the product launch across the markets under his portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, MoMo faced constant delays and challenges due to regulatory issues, especially in Nigeria, Ghana, C\u00f4te d’Ivoire, and Cameroon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growth was slow for most of its existence, but by 2023, MTN said that Mobile Money experienced explosive growth. That year, it saw 72.5 million active users across 16 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The platform processed more than $270 billion across its African markets, which would include South Africa after the platform was launched domestically in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As MoMo took off, Okoudjou would eventually leave MTN Group and has since founded his own tech company<\/a>, the African Internet infrastructure firm Onafriq, formerly known as MFS Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, MoMo would continue expanding. During the launch of MoMo in the South African market<\/a>, MTN said it followed “successes in other African countries.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have learnt what to do as well as what not to do, and we believe that MTN has a significant footprint in South Africa to reach underbanked and underserved communities,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We see MoMo playing a significant role for both the man on the street as well as the South African economy by enabling enterprise development at the formal and informal level.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godfrey Motsa, the CEO of MTN South Africa at the time, said that the launch of the platform would be a pivotal step in the group’s strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It represents MTN’s participation in the next phase of increasing convergence we are seeing between financial services and mobile technology,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MoMo offers cash deposits and withdrawals, tap-to-pay and QR code\u2013based payments and the ability to buy airtime and pay utilities like water and electricity directly on the app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analyst foresees significant growth opportunity with MTN fintech<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Ricus Reeders, securities wealth manager at PSG Wealth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Last week, MTN Group announced the launch of a new super app based on MTN MoMo<\/a> in Nigeria, with a wider rollout across other African countries in the offing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It followed the group’s announcement of a strategic partnership with Ant International, the Singaporean fintech company that powers Alipay, the Chinese payment giant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The partnership, which is expected to launch in Nigeria next quarter, will introduce a super app platform designed to enhance user experience,” it said at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It will deepen digital inclusion and enable a next-generation ecosystem for digital finance, lifestyle and commerce services around MoMo.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said that the partnership and super app will allow customers to use the payments, savings and value-added services more intuitively and responsively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to BusinessDayTV<\/a>, Reeders said that fintech would be a major driver of MTN Group’s financial growth, even amid challenging macroeconomic conditions in its African markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What really is going to be the driver of their growth is fintech, and not because it’s company-specific, but because the fintech market in Africa is the fastest growing globally,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There are some estimates that from where we are right now, in 2026, that it could be five times the size it is right now in five years’ time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reeders said that MTN is directly exposed to that growth, and to a certain extent, it is leading the market in fintech adoption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It has to be good for them; it has to be good for their bottom line and for the future earnings potential,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There will be risks, you know, whether it be in Nigeria or Ghana or wherever, but I think the exposure to that market is too important to ignore.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

MTN Group share price for the 2026 year-to-date<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN MoMo’s creator said it felt like a “pet project” in the beginning. Years later, the company is looking to the project for its next phase of growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":639948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41906],"tags":[105859,105908,1863,68156,105909,70964,82343,81771],"class_list":["post-654117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-telecoms","tag-ant-international","tag-dare-okoudjou","tag-mobile-money","tag-mtn-momo","tag-onafriq","tag-psg-wealth","tag-ricus-reeders","tag-super-app"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654117"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654405,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654117\/revisions\/654405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}