Telecommunications service provider Vodacom has announced that its mobile money transaction service launched in a partnership deal with Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) in May this year, has reached the one million mark in subscriber count.
Dubbed M-Pawa, the service was launched in Tanzania to allow customers of Vodacom have an easier way of doing banking by enabling users to open and operate a savings account from their mobile device through the M-Pesa service.
The mobile money service provides customers with an opportunity to save money in small amounts, with the least amount that a user can save standing at 1 shilling and also allows access to micro loans of a minimum of TSh1,000 (about Ksh50)
Similar to Kenya’s M-Shwari by Safaricom, which was also launched in partnership with CBA, M-Pawa allows Tanzanians to borrow money depending on their M-Pesa transaction history as well as how often customers use their Vodacom networks.
According to Jacques Voogt, the Head of Financial Services at Vodacom, the financial sector in Tanzania is being revolutionised by mobile money services such as M-Pesa and M-Pawa.
An October survey done by global company On Device Research, reported the M-Pesa service as the reason Kenya holds top position in the mobile banking and payments sector across Africa.
“We are witnessing the same growth with M-Pawa and we are proud to have played a key role in allowing Tanzanians who did not yet have access to financial services to become active players in the country’s economy through this service,” said Voogt.
Three weeks after the service was launched in Tanzania, the telecom announced that it had registered up to 250,000 users, with a total of more than 500,000 users being registered in the month of July, 2014.
