Airtel launches mobile money platform in Uganda

By Telecom Lead Team: Airtel Uganda has launched its mobile
money platform. The service provides customer with convenient access to
affordable financial services through their mobile phones.

The platform allows customers to top up their phones with
air time, send and receive money, pay their utility bills, access bank accounts
and withdraw Airtel money across all interswitch ATMs country wide. 

Airtel has partnered with banks to provide customers with access to deposit and
withdraw cash, money transfers, banking services and pay bills. These include
Standard Chartered Bank, Post Bank, Pride Micro Finance, Centenary Rural
Development Bank, Equity Bank, Diamond Trust Bank, United Bank of Africa, Kenya
Commercial Bank, Baroda, Eco Bank and Finance Trust Bank. 

Mobile commerce has the ability to assist a large segment of the population
due to its distribution network. Airtel Money’s new platform will provide
customers with a useful offering of products that cuts across Mobile banking
including ATM transactions, utility bill payments, Airtime top ups and Money
Transfer services,” said VG Somasekhar, managing director, Airtel Uganda. 

Somasekhar said that the rural populations have inadvertently been left out of
the financial system due to cost and distance from urban centers. The Airtel
Money Agent network throughout Uganda enables customers to transact money
anywhere. There are more than three thousand eight hundred Airtel Money agents,
ensuring the widest availability of Airtel Money throughout Uganda.”

ICTs are increasingly in demand to meet the Millennium Development Goals. In
the rural context, ICTs provide enhanced opportunities to generate income and
combat poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy. We congratulate Airtel and
believe that through its Airtel money initiatives, customers and communities
even in the deepest rural areas of Uganda will take maximum advantage and reap
the benefits of mobile commerce and other innovative services from Airtel,”
said Nyombi Thembo, Minister of State for ICT. 

During their entry into the Ugandan Market, Airtel announced an investment of
up to $100 million into the market and part of this would be allocated towards
the provision of innovative mobile services in Uganda. I am very pleased to see
how mobile services are complementing the banking sector,” said Amama Mbabazi,
prime minister of the Republic of Uganda. 
Airtel Money will be available to all Airtel customers, both Prepaid and Postpaid
and registration is free at all Airtel Centers and Airtel Money outlets
countrywide.

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