Airtel Africa secures $100m investment from Mastercard for mobile money business

Airtel Africa has secured an investment of $100 million for its mobile money business – Airtel Mobile Commerce (AMC BV) from Mastercard in return for a minority stake.

Currently, Airtel Mobile Commerce is the holding firm for various mobile money operations of Airtel Africa. It is planned to own and operate the mobile money businesses in all of Airtel Africa’s 14 operating countries.

The deal values the mobile money business of Airtel Africa at $2.65 billion on a cash and debt free basis. Airtel Africa will continue to have a majority stake in Airtel Mobile Commerce.

Airtel Africa and Mastercard have also extended commercial agreements and have entered into a new commercial framework for extending their partnerships across various regions and areas such as issuance of cards, payment gateway, merchant acceptance, payment processing, remittance solutions and others.

Airtel Africa secures $100m investment from Mastercard for mobile money business – Airtel Mobile Commerce. Photo courtesy of Prof.Chen Hualin/Wikipedia.org.

Raghunath Mandava – CEO of Airtel Africa said: “We are significantly strengthening our existing strategic relationship with Mastercard to help us both realise the full potential from the substantial opportunity to improve financial inclusion across our countries of operation.

“The combination of our extensive customer base and distribution platforms and Mastercard’s products and services, innovation and know how, mean we can together accelerate demand and drive growth in financial services for the benefit of all our customers and markets.”

The closing of the deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals and closing conditions, and the transfer of certain mobile money business assets and contracts into Airtel Mobile Commerce, is expected to close in the next three to four months.

Last month, TPG’s global impact investing platform The Rise Fund signed a deal with Airtel Africa to acquire a minority stake in Airtel Mobile Commerce for $200 million.