To increase lending from its own balance sheet, MTN Group, the biggest telecom provider in Africa, is looking for banking licenses in a few regions, CEO Ralph Mupita said on Tuesday.
With lending emerging as one of the fastest-growing categories within its mobile money business, MTN is intensifying its push into fintech services to boost development beyond traditional telecom income.
Mupita told reporters, “We’re seeing good growth on advanced services, which are our future-proof services,” alluding to services like loans, e-commerce, and payments.
Lending is actually the major growth that is occurring now and will continue to expand in the future.
Currently, MTN offers loans through bank agreements. We’re starting to investigate if it could make sense to get some kind of banking license that allows us to accept deposits in areas with sizable client bases and substantial wallet floats,” Mupita stated.
As a result, we will eventually be borrowing money from our own balance sheet. However, this does not imply that we will not engage in any partnership financing.
Given the dangers involved, he stated that any transition to balance-sheet lending would be slow and that the strategy would be applied selectively rather than throughout all of MTN’s businesses.
DATA CENTRES
MTN is also placing a wager on the expansion of digital infrastructure.
Through Africa Data Hub Holding, a partnership with an unidentified UAE-backed investor to build AI-ready data center infrastructure across important African markets, the business intends to establish AI-enabled data centers in South Africa and Nigeria.
MTN would be a minority investor in the project, with the majority of the funding and technical know-how coming from its partner, which has experience constructing data centers in the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf nations.
The first phase is anticipated to aim for roughly 150 megawatts of capacity throughout South Africa and Nigeria, with demand driving further expansion.
