Emmanuel Ojukwu
The fintech arm of MTN Nigeria recorded a marginal revenue increase of N22.8 billion in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024, which is coming amid a pre-tax loss of N575.69 billion in the company’s overall operations.
In the Q1 2024 financial result, MTN disclosed that its fintech recorded significant gains of 0.7% growth which was impacted by industry-wide exercises of linking National Identification Numbers (NIN) with mobile numbers and KYC validation.
The growing adoption and increased activity within MTN’s fintech ecosystem spurred transaction volume growth of 25.6% YoY. Meanwhile, despite the marginal revenue increase, active wallets significantly declined due to KYC requirements. MTN reportedly ended the quarter with 4.8 million active wallet users, representing a 566k decline in Q1.
Also, in quarter 1 of 2024, with 232.3k MoMo agents, which includes OTC agents, reflecting a decline of 94.4k in the period. Excluding OTC transactions, MoMo agents were 189.6k. The company added more than 75k merchants in Q1, bringing the total number of merchants within our ecosystem to over 400k.”
Commenting on the earnings report, MTN Nigeria CEO Karl Toriola said,
“The KYC requirement and the delays in CBN approvals for some of our commercial initiatives impacted the growth of active wallets. We ended the quarter with 4.8 million active wallet users, representing a 566k decline in Q1. The growing adoption and increased activity within our Fintech ecosystem spurred transaction volume growth of 25.6% YoY. We ended the quarter with 232.3k MoMo agents, which includes OTC agents, reflecting a decline of 94. 4k in the period. Excluding OTC transactions, MoMo agents were 189.6k. We added more than 75k merchants in Q1, bringing the total number of merchants within our ecosystem to over 400k.”
Moving forward, Mr. Toriola stated that the company remains focused on its fintech priority to build robust structures that support the acceleration of wallet adoption and the growth of our merchant ecosystem.
