Airtel Africa has revealed the official commencement of operations of its payment service bank tagged SmartCash in Nigeria. This revelation was made in a recent filing to the Nigerian Exchange.
According to Airtel, SmartCash will offer services at select retail touchpoints before operations will be extended to other parts of Nigeria over the next few months.
“This is the beginning of our journey to revolutionise the financial services landscape in the country,” said Segun Ogunsanya, Airtel Africa Group Executive CEO.
The move is “to help further digitise the economy, and most importantly to help bank the unbanked by reaching the millions of Nigerians who do not currently have access to financial services by delivering current and savings accounts, payment and remittance services, debit and prepayment cards and more sophisticated services,” Mr Ogunsanya added.
Airtel Africa, listed in Lagos and London, announced receipt of full licence approval for the PSB unit from the Central Bank of Nigeria in April after years in the works.
Its mobile money business on the continent already carries a valuation of $2.65 billion on a cash and debt free basis, and a separate listing of that operation is in the pipeline, with management envisaging its delivery in three years.
SmartCash PSB joins 9PSB, the payments subsidiary of telecom firm Etisalat and Momo PSB (owned by MTN Nigeria) as Nigerian telecom firms plans to diversify their revenue sources as well as take advantage to the growing fintech disruption in Nigeria. Glo, a telco in Nigeria is expected to join the race in the near future with its Money Master PSB.
