The International Finance Corporation (IFC) signed a cooperation agreement with Vodacom to bolster its M-Pesa mobile money platform in Mozambique, a move to boost financial inclusion in the country.
In a statement, the IFC, a World Bank Group subsidiary, said it will support M-Pesa in several key areas such as revamping its agent network and conducting nationwide training for sales teams and agents. The IDC will also assist in reviewing M-Pesa’s merchant acquisition and management strategy in order to expand it, and also support other M-Pesa activities across different regions.
Vodacom and the IDC will launched and pilot new projects to expand mobile money services in rural areas with a specific focus on increasing financial inclusion for smallholder farmers, such farms account for 93% of Mozambique’s total agricultural production.
Around 40% of adults in the country have a mobile money account, well below the regional average of 64%, noted the IFC.
The financial institution highlgihted the M-Pesa platform for its affordability and features such as the ability to send and receive money, top-up airtime, make bill payments, receive salaries, and gain short-term loans.
The number of active registered M-Pesa users more than tripled from 1.9 million to 6 million between 2018 and 2022, after an initial project between the IFC and Vodacom.
Vodacom launched M-Pesa in Mozambique in 2013 and has paid around MZN9 billion (US$142 million) in commission to agents in the last five years.
Sergio Gomes, Director of Vodacom M-PESA Mozambique said: “The new phase of MPESA will focus on expanding our value proposition and use cases to limit the use of cash in the economy.
“One important vertical where we want to intervene is in agriculture where payments are dominated by cash. We believe that through this partnership with IFC, we can have an impact on farmers by digitising their value chains beginning with payments received for their produce and moving out to developing more sophisticated products like insurance”.
