Millicom’s Tigo Pesa mobile money service has signed a deal with Vodacom that will see its customers transact across networks, making it the first in Africa to allow subscribers transact with users of all their country’s mobile money networks.
The deal with Vodacom comes after Tigo Pesa signed a similar deal with the country’s Airtel Tanzania and Zantel in 2014 for cross-network mobile money transactions. The partnership will give 4 million Tigo Pesa users the ability to transact with 6 million M-Pesa customers in Tanzania later this year.
According to Millicom’s Executive Vice President for Africa, Arthur Bastings, “With Tigo Pesa customers will now have Africa’s first universal mobile money exchange system. They will be able to safely and securely transact with millions more people across the country.”
Bastings added that the move is the first in Africa and another first from Tigo Pesa and Tanzania. The firm intends to pioneer similar agreements with networks elsewhere. Tigo started operations in 1994 and is part of Millicom International Cellular S.A. (MIC) and and has over 30 million customers in 13 emerging markets in Africa and Latin America.
Tigo Pesa also launched a cross-border mobile money transfer service between Rwanda and Tanzania last year.