Tigo Pesa subscribers to transact across mobile money services

In a statement yesterday, the company said its Tigo Pesa customers will now be able to move funds to Vodacom’s M-Pesa, Ezy Pesa of Zantel and Airtel Money.

“Tigo becomes the only operator in Tanzania to offer interoperability with Airtel, Vodacom and Zantel,” the statement added.

Vodacom’s participation means that more than 16 million mobile money users in Tanzania will be able to conduct transactions with one-another regardless of which mobile operator they use. The partnership creates Africa’s first universal interoperable mobile money network.

“In June 2014, Tigo, Airtel and Zantel announced a pioneering interoperability agreement. Since then, their customers have enjoyed interoperability between their mobile money accounts which has accounted for an increase of 3.5 times the value of total offline transactions,” the statement noted.

Interoperability in Tanzania today is not exclusive to mobile operators as it also involves more than 25 banks with 16 million mobile financial users transacting an equivalent of more than 50 percent of gross domestic product each month.
“Thanks to this growing network, Tanzania is now the leading place for mobile money in east Africa, overtaking Kenya,” Tigo Tanzania pointed out.

Commenting on the latest development, Tigo Tanzania Head of Mobile Financial Services, Ruan Swanepoel said with Tigo Pesa, subscribers will now benefit from faster, cheaper and safer cashless transactions with anyone across the country.

“We believe interoperability is crucial to the success of mobile money and the wider goal of increasing financial inclusion. It is also a fundamental building block towards constructing a digital economy, enabling merchants and other start-ups to participate in the financial services ecosystem,” Swanepoel said.

Tigo Tanzania is the leading innovative telecommunication company in the country, distinguished as a fully-fledged digital lifestyle brand. The Tigo 3G networks guarantees the best services to its subscriber’s in all regions across the country. In 2015 Tigo launched 4G LTE network in Dar es Salaam and selected regions with plans to become available all over the country in 2017.

Tigo is a subsidiary of Millicom International Cellular SA, the European based telecommunications and media company founded in 1990 with focus on frontier and emerging markets in Africa and Latin America.