AirtelMoney launched in Uganda

Airtel Uganda launched its mobile money transfer service Airtel Money in Uganda last week. The service is expected to foster further growth by infusing more competition into Uganda’s fast growing mobile money industry.

The service is the fourth in the country after MTN Money, Warid Pesa and M-Sente operated by MTN, Warid Telecoms and Uganda Telecom (UTL) respectively. MTN Money was the first to launch in 2009 and while it has been dogged by technical hitches, it has reported a fair degree of success and accounts for 80 per cent of the mobile money transactions in the country.

Airtel expects better performance of its service in Uganda as opposed to the dismal performance in Kenya, where the service has remained a distant second to Safaricom’s M-Pesa. "Airtel Money will enable Ugandans withdraw funds directly from ATMs for the first time," the company said in a statement. "The service will extend innovative mobile financial solutions to both the banked and unbanked across the country." "We will help a large segment of the population due to our wider reach," said V G Somasekhar, Airtel Uganda managing director in the statement.

—Macharia Kamau