Financial inclusion

Financial inclusion is necessary to reduce poverty. We work with various licensed banking and financial services providers to enable people in remote areas to access payments, loans and savings on their mobile devices without needing to travel.

M-Pesa in Tanzania, the DRC, Mozambique and Lesotho, is the biggest financial services provider in Africa based on transactions processed. It provides financial services to people with a mobile phone but limited access to a bank account. Services include payments, local and international remittances, savings, lending, overdraft and foreign exchange. The virtual Mastercard enables M-Pesa customers to purchase from international merchants and content providers. M-Pesa offers access to personal services such as healthcare, education, employment, transportation and social protection. M-Pesa is integrated with money transfer hubs in Africa and beyond, allowing customers to send and receive cross-border remittances from their M-Pesa wallets. We process US$1 billion of transaction value daily across our M-Pesa and financial services ecosystems, including Safaricom, with our super-app approach.

VF Cash is an e-wallet and financial services platform which caters to the needs of the two thirds unbanked Egyptian population. VF Cash has supported donations to more than 80 non-governmental organisations, resulting in a 146% increase in donations over Ramadan from FY2022. VF Cash is a fintech market leader, reaching 16.4 million wallet holders and 5.4 million monthly active users.

The VodaPay super-app in South Africa combines our capabilities across consumers and merchants in payments, lending, insurance and e-Commerce, and provides exposure to new growth verticals such as savings and investments. Unique mini apps provide VodaPay service and merchant offerings. We enabled several SMEs looking to access the e-Commerce market to be part of the ecosystem.

Examples of how we are contributing to the ambitions and targets of SDG 1