Rapid growth in Afrimoney’s user-base shows progress towards greater financial inclusion and digital connectedness in Angola.
Africell’s mobile money platform has reached the milestone of a quarter of a million active monthly users in Angola. In the second quarter of 2024, more than 630,000 customers used Afrimoney Angola services, of which 250,000 were repeat users. Having first launched in April 2023, the service now boasts more than 2 million registered customers. The expansion in Afrimoney’s user base in Angola represents quick progress by Africell towards reshaping and modernising Angola’s digital and financial landscape.
Afrimoney customers make person-to-person transactions and pay for goods and services in a quick, secure and easy way. Mobile money services are available to all segments of the population, including customers without formal bank accounts. Services can be accessed through even the most basic mobile handsets, meaning that there are virtually no barriers to use.
The growth of Afrimoney in Angola is the result of a comprehensive public education and advertising campaign designed to familiarise Angolans with the benefits of mobile money and teach them how to use it. In addition to person-to-person transactions, customers can use Afrimoney to pay (or receive money from) institutions. Building on the impressive customer growth achieved so far, Afrimoney expects to expand even further in the rest of 2024 thanks to new partnerships with public companies such as EPAL, ENDE and CFL. Through these deals, customers will be able to pay for electricity, water and public transport with mobile money – offering a safer and more convenient option than cash payments, which currently predominate.
“For mobile money to succeed at scale, there must be high levels of trust, awareness and understanding”, explains Katia da Conceição, director of Afrimoney Angola. “Angola does not have a long history of mobile money adoption, so our priority has been to build these things. The outreach and campaigning we have done since launching last year is starting to pay off, and we are thrilled that more and more Angolans are beginning to feel the benefits of digital financial tools in their everyday lives”.
In addition to helping individual users, mobile money has a long and well-established record of creating wider social impact. Mobile money services can be enjoyed even by those people who would find it impossible to access mainstream banks. This means that it plays a crucial role in integrating the formal and informal economies and thereby boosting national productivity and economic growth. The positive impact of Afrimoney on under-privileged and historically excluded communities in Angola has been recognised by USAID (Agência dos Estados Unidos para o Desenvolvimento Internacional) and PNUD (Programa das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento), both of which are collaborating with Afrimoney Angola on bespoke projects.
Luanda’s Mercado do Asa Branco illustrates the transformational effects of mobile money in real economic contexts. ‘Zungueiras’ and other traders at the busy market in Angola’s capital city can now pay their daily fees through the Afrimoney platform. This helps them avoid having to find exact cash change, which can be time-consuming, difficult and – in an environment where the availability of cash is highly volatile – risky to their businesses. As part of the project, Africell will also offer free mobile data to market vendors who use Afrimoney services. Angola’s agricultural sector is another case study. Afrimoney has partnered with Grupo Carrinho, a major Angolan food business, to create new digital payment options for seeds, fertiliser, crop payments and other essential transactions.
Reflecting on the success so far, Katia da Conceição says that Afrimoney Angola has even bigger ambitions.
“Our vision is to establish an interconnected system across the Angolan economy in which users have a wide range of convenient daily use-cases for Afrimoney”, she explains. “That is why we are currently looking to partner with banks and insurance companies, for example, with the aim being to expand access to micro-credit, savings and insurance. The more such benefits we offer, the more customers and partners we will attract. Our long-term goal is nothing short of transforming Angola’s digital financial landscape for the better”.