MTN Group Chief Executive Officer, Ralph Mupita has clarified speculation about the telecommunication giant’s entry into mainstream banking, insisting that the company’s current priority is financial inclusion rather than seeking a commercial banking license.
Speaking at the Bright Conversations series in Accra, Ralph Mupita maintained that MTN’s strategy is anchored on scaling up its Mobile Money platform to serve millions more across Africa, even as discussions around a possible banking play have surfaced in the market.
“Bank is just a license and a license is creating capabilities and adding the capital to do certain things so we don’t see ourselves as a bank today but let us not exclude that as a possibility in the future,” he said.
He explained that while banking remains an avenue that could be explored at some point, MTN sees greater value in tackling the gap in financial inclusion on the continent, where millions remain unbanked and underserved.
Well I think it is more useful for us to think about the role we have to play in driving financial inclusion. We are not even 50 percent through. There’s a lot more to play out even in the first half it is not finished. But there may be a time when we think we may need different capabilities and a license but that is not occupying our minds right now,” he stressed.
The remarks come as MTN Group, Africa’s largest telecom operator, posted a 23.3 percent year-on-year rise in service revenue to $5.7 billion in the first half of 2025.
This performance was partly attributed to the strong showing in Ghana, where the Group CEO commended staff and assured Ghanaian customers of uncompromised service delivery.
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