MTN’s fintech subscribers decline by 2.7%

The number of active fintech subscribers on the MTN Nigeria network declined by 2.7 percent to 14.5 million in 2023.

The telco disclosed this in its full financial year report for the period ended December 31, 2023. According to MTN, the decline can be attributed to the NIN Know Your Customer (KYC) requirement introduced in Q4 by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

It said, “While the development of the business has been slower than anticipated, we are pleased with the progress in building our MoMo PSB wallet base. The number of registered MoMo wallets active users rose by over 3.3 million in the year to 5.3 million, indicating the underlying momentum in the ecosystem.”

It noted that its fintech revenue increased by 2.4 percent, with growth in Xtratime (its airtime lending product, up 2 percent) and core fintech services (wallet and super-agent business, up 22.7 percent).

“We expanded our MoMo agent network by adding over 103,000 active agents, bringing the total number to approximately 327,000. Our agent network continued to play a pivotal role in our MoMo ecosystem, bringing the service closer to our customers. Our merchant business, which we started in March 2023 has reached over 324,000 by December 2023,” it added.

MTN’s result revealed that its total service revenue grew year-on-year by 22.4 percent to N2.4 trillion, mobile subscribers increased by 5.3 percent to 79.7 million, and active data users rose by 12.7 percent to 44.6 million.

“We recorded pleasing growth of 39.8 percent (up 48.7 percent in Q4) in data revenue supported by a revamp of our data bundle offerings – particularly in Q4 – as well as the significant investment in our network coverage and capacity,” it stated.

The telco’s 4G network now covers 81.5 percent of the population and its smartphone penetration rose to 55.6 percent, underpinning data usage (GB per user) growth of 29.1 percent to 8.6GB. It highlighted that its data traffic growth increased by 44.9 percent.

Commenting on the company’s outlook on fintech, Karl Toriola, chief executive officer, MTN Nigeria said, “We will continue to drive consumer education and awareness, leveraging our distribution network, which has enabled us to grow the active wallets and scale the agent and merchant ecosystem.

“The company is expanding its business service from basic to advanced, including cross-border remittances, to boost adoption and monetisation.”