TIDMVOD
Vodafone Group Plc
25 April 2016
25 April 2016
VODAFONE M-PESA REACHES 25 MILLION CUSTOMERS MILESTONE
Vodafone M-Pesa now has more than 25 million active customers,
marking another year of accelerated growth for the innovative
mobile money transfer service, it was announced today.
Across markets in Africa, Asia and Europe, active customers of
M-Pesa increased by 27.1% to 25.3 million in the year ended 31
March 2016, boosted by market launches in Albania and Ghana and
supported by a network of more than 261,000 agents in 11 M-Pesa
countries.
Vodafone Group Director of Mobile Money, Michael Joseph, said:
"Since 2007, M-Pesa has enhanced the lives and livelihoods of
people without bank accounts, giving them access to essential
financial services through their mobile phones.
"I am delighted and proud that M-Pesa has reached the 25 million
active customers milestone. M-Pesa continues to expand, evolving
beyond traditional money transfers to encompass savings and loans,
payment of salaries and benefits, settlement of utility bills and
school fees and to enable vital health and agricultural
solutions."
Vodafone M-Pesa continued to innovate during the last year,
adding new features and services and entering into partnerships
with public and private sector organisations. Highlights from some
markets included:
-- Government Partnerships: Vodafone has entered into a
partnership with the Ministry of Social Development in Lesotho to
pay welfare grants using M-Pesa. Kenya's Ministry of Agriculture is
now paying fertilizer subsidies using M-Pesa. In India, the
National Rural Livelihoods Mission utilises M-Pesa to enable
financial inclusion for women's groups and the National Rural
Health Mission is using the service to disburse pre-natal health
benefits.
-- India: The launch of an M-Pesa smartphone app enables Indian
customers to use M-Pesa to pay for goods on Ebay, for taxis with
TabCab and to book train tickets on India's national railways.
Enterprises including Walmart are using M-Pesa in India to improve
cash management and business efficiency.
-- Lesotho: Vodafone launched a service enabling customers to
convert airtime to M-Pesa credit to pay for emergency treatment.
Also, hundreds of community health workers across seven hospitals
and 67 clinics managed by Partners in Health are now paid using
M-Pesa and international children's charity World Vision pays a
portion of employee salaries using M-Pesa.
-- Mozambique: Global development agencies now use M-Pesa to pay
employee salaries and allowances. Water, electricity and pay
television companies in the country collect payments via M-Pesa.
The national carrier LAM also accepts M-Pesa for air tickets.
-- Tanzania: Solar solution companies including Mobisol,
Off-Grid Electric, M-Kopa and others use M-Pesa to help provide
affordable clean energy for thousands of rural households. Qatar
Airways and KLM now accept M-Pesa for air tickets from
Tanzania.
-- Kenya: Safaricom has partnered with healthcare finance
organisations PharmAccess Foundation and CarePay to introduce
M-Tiba, a mobile health wallet that channels money from donors and
government meant for health services directly to recipients.
Customers can redeem their savings digitally with cashless access
to a network of registered clinics and pharmacies. The World Food
Programme is using M-Pesa to help deliver their food aid programme
in Kenyan refugee camps.
Over the past 12 months, Vodafone has agreed a series of deals
with partners to enable M-Pesa customers to transact with other
services and across borders, including:
-- Global Framework Agreements with two international money
transfer hubs, TransferTo and MFS For Africa, laying the
foundations for strong partnerships with other money transfer
operators around the world.
-- An agreement with MTN Mobile Money to enable direct money
transfers between M-Pesa and MTN customers in seven countries
across East Africa.
-- The launch of international money transfer services in Romania, Lesotho and Albania.
-- An agreement between Tanzania's major mobile operators,
including Vodacom, to enable their domestic mobile money services
to be fully interoperable - the first market in Africa to do
so.
- ends -
For further information:
Vodafone Group
Media Relations Investor Relations
www.vodafone.com/media/contact Telephone: +44 (0) 7919
990 230
About Vodafone Group
Vodafone is one of the world's largest telecommunications
companies and provides a range of services including voice,
messaging, data and fixed communications. Vodafone has mobile
operations in 26 countries, partners with mobile networks in 57
more, and fixed broadband operations in 17 markets. As of 31
December 2015, Vodafone had 461 million mobile customers and 13
million fixed broadband customers. For more information, please
visit: www.vodafone.com.
About M-Pesa
The M-Pesa service was launched in March 2007 by Safaricom
Limited in Kenya. Vodafone has a 40% shareholding in Safaricom. It
enables millions of people who have access to a mobile phone, but
do not have access to a bank account, to send and receive money,
top-up airtime, make bill payments and enjoy a range of other
services.
M-Pesa had 25.3 million active customers as of 31 March 2016 and
approximately 261,000 agents worldwide. It is available in 11
markets: Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Democratic Republic of
Congo, India, Mozambique, Egypt, Lesotho, Ghana, Albania and
Romania.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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