MTN Nigeria, one of the leading telecommunication companies in the country, has launched its Yellow Digital Financial Service (YDFS), into the Kano market, as part of an initiative geared at scaling up e-business transactions across the country.
The product which was floated with the approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), was rolled out in a big way during a ceremony held in Dambatta Local Government Area of the state, yesterday.
Briefing journalists on the sidelines of the launch, Kumar Abubakar, who is a regional manager of the company, disclosed that the new innovation was conceived to eases the demands of their customers seeking to transfer money to their friends and relatives in a more cost-effective and safe way.
According to him, the company intends capturing 50,000 users of the product out of the over four million potential subscribers before the end of the year.
“This idea was conceived to reach people wanting to send money to their friends or relatives, but are finding it difficult to do cash transactions. Which informs a development in which they resulted in sending money by purchasing credit cards and send it to them through agents to sell before delivering the money. And in the process of doing this, they are being cheated.
“In order to address the challenge, the Yellow Digital Financial Services, a subsidiary of MTN, came up with a new product which was licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria to do cash transactions. It is such that if you have a brother in Lagos or Port- Harcourt or anywhere in Nigeria, you can send cash to him through our MoMo agent and then he can go to the agent nearest to him and collect cash without any charges. This is what we are here in Kano to sell to the people in Danbatta.”
Abubakar explained that the network planned to reach out to it about 63 million subscribers in Nigeria, out of which about four million of the number resides in Kan state. The product is a more reliable financial transaction that will ease the public need for smooth e-transactions.
“If you look at other competition in Nigeria, you will see that they have restrictions. They have a lot of plans in Nigeria but they don’t have coverage. So what are leveraging on is our strong customer base, such that everywhere you go you will find an agent close to you and affect your transaction.
“What we are planning is to cover beyond the INEC’s polling unit per community in order to have a wide reach out for transaction,” he added, pointing out that 3000 agents are recruited to offer the MoMo services to Kano residents, he further explained.
The event which was held inside the Dambatta Community Market attracted a large members of the public, and a cross-section of local musical and cultural artists, who performed before the launch.
