Africell Holding SAL is set to launch new financial services this weekend in Angola, a country that’s lagged behind as the rest of Sub Saharan Africa dominated the mobile payments market.
The firm invested more than $150 million to build out its mobile phone network in Angola and has attracted 7 million customers since started operating in the country in 2022.
The Afrimoney product is now rolling out after being available via Africell in the DRC, Gambia and Sierra Leonne.
“The country has a developed banking system skewed toward higher income earners,” Simon Andersson-Manjang, the company’s head of mobile money, said of Angola in an interview. “We are looking to bring more financial inclusion with mobile money as about 50% of the population remains un-banked.”
Sub Saharan Africa is home to almost half of all the world’s mobile-money accounts, which are essentially digital financial products operated by phone companies. The region accounted for $832 billion of the $1.3 trillion total value of worldwide transactions last year, according to the GSMA.
In countries Africell already operates, customers use it to receive their salaries, pay bills, or transfer money to friends and family, according to its website. A rival system from Safaricom Plc — M-Pesa — launched in Kenya in 2007 and revolutionized the way people in East Africa do business. West Africa has been less competitive, but usage has grown recently in Nigeria.
With a population of more than 30 million and one of the largest economies in the region, Angola remains a significant untapped market when it comes to digital and mobile-money payments.
Andersson-Manjang said Africell will train about 10,000 customer service workers by the end of the year to support adoption. The company also plans to partner with Angolan banks to provide insurance and credit products in the mid-term, he said, and is also in talks with remittance players to provide international services in future.
Africell was clear to start up in Angola after being awarded the country’s fourth mobile phone license in 2020. A year later it closed its operations in Uganda after seven years there to “focus on other markets,” a spokesman said at the time.
