MTN mobile money goes live early next year

A shopper walks past an MTN shop at a mall in Johannesburg, South Africa. [Reuters]

MTN’s mobile money service will go live in January in South Africa, allowing customers to send, receive, save money and pay for goods using their mobile phones, the mobile operator said on Wednesday.

Last year, group Chief Executive Officer Rob Shuter told a telecoms conference in Cape Town that the company would relaunch mobile money services in South Africa, three years after canning the service.