Emmanuel Ojukwu
In March 2024, SmartCash, Airtel’s innovative payment service bank (PSB), announced that it had achieved 1.5 million active users. This information was revealed in the financial results of its parent company, Airtel Africa, for the first quarter (Q1) of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024.
The company wrote,
“During this year, we accelerated our customer acquisition strategy and our customer base is 1.5 million active customers. We continue to build the ecosystem to grow our transaction value”.
In the first quarter (Q1) of 2024, Airtel reported a 15% growth in the annualized transaction value for SmartCash PSB compared to the quarter ended December 2023. Additionally, SmartCash expanded its agent network by 39,000 agents during the quarter, reaching nearly 205,000 agents by March 31, 2024.
The mobile money customer base also grew to 38 million customers across Airtel’s operations in 14 African countries by the end of March, with SmartCash accounting for 4% of the Group’s mobile money customers.
Airtel plans to capitalize on the low penetration of traditional banking services and the large number of unbanked customers across Africa to further enhance its mobile money business, which caters to the needs of these customers through mobile money services.
