Africa’s largest telecommunications operator MTN is exploring banking licences in selected markets as it looks to expand lending and turn its vast mobile-money network into a deeper financial services business.
Chief executive Ralph Mupita said the group would consider licences in markets where it has large customer bases and significant balances held in mobile wallets. The strategy could eventually allow MTN to accept deposits and use its own balance sheet to support lending, taking the telecoms giant further into territory traditionally dominated by banks.
MTN has not identified the countries under consideration, and no new banking licence has been announced. The group intends to move selectively as it evaluates where the model could work alongside its existing financial services partnerships.
Lending already forms part of MTN’s fintech business, but the company mainly facilitates credit through partnerships with established financial institutions. Obtaining banking licences could allow MTN to take deposits in selected markets and, over time, use its own balance sheet to support lending while maintaining some of those partnerships.
The shift could mark an important stage in MTN’s transformation from a conventional mobile operator into a broader digital services group. Mobile money, data and digital platforms are becoming increasingly important as traditional voice services account for a smaller share of growth across African telecommunications markets.
MTN enters that next phase with significant scale. The group reported 317.7 million subscribers across its markets at the end of June, giving it one of the largest customer networks on the continent.
Its financial technology business has also developed into a substantial operation. MTN reported 70.8 million monthly active Mobile Money users during the first half of 2026, supported by 1.4 million active agents.
Those customers processed 13 billion transactions worth $330.5 billion during the six-month period. The scale of that activity gives MTN an existing financial ecosystem through which it can potentially expand lending and other services without building a customer network from the ground up.
BankTech is already one of the faster-growing parts of that ecosystem. During the first quarter of 2026, MTN facilitated loans worth $1.23 billion, an increase of more than 70% from the previous year. Uganda and Ghana led much of that growth, while the group also introduced new products in Rwanda and ran campaigns to increase adoption in Zambia, Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville.
Moving towards direct lending would nevertheless represent a significant change in risk. Under the partnership model, established financial institutions can carry much of the credit exposure while MTN provides the technology, distribution and customer access.
Using its own balance sheet would expose MTN more directly to the performance of those loans. Deposit-taking would also bring additional regulatory requirements around capital, liquidity and customer protection, making banking licences considerably more complex than conventional mobile-money operations.
That helps explain why Mupita has described the approach as selective rather than a continent-wide banking strategy.
MTN’s interest in banking comes as competition intensifies between telecom operators, banks and fintech companies for Africa’s digital financial customers. Mobile-money platforms that initially focused on transfers have expanded into payments, remittances, insurance, savings, lending and merchant services.
The shift has been particularly significant in markets where conventional banking infrastructure has struggled to reach large parts of the population. Mobile networks have given financial providers an alternative distribution system, allowing customers to conduct transactions through phones and local agent networks.
MTN now wants to extract more value from that position as it pursues growth beyond traditional telecommunications.
Its latest financial results show the strength of the wider business. Group service revenue increased by 17.5% in constant currency to R115.3 billion during the first half of 2026, supported by strong performances in Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda.
Adjusted headline earnings per share increased by 21.3% to 793 cents, while core earnings rose by almost a quarter to R56 billion. Stronger cash generation also supported MTN’s R6 billion share buyback programme.
Fintech is expected to play an increasingly important role in maintaining that momentum. The group has positioned financial technology alongside connectivity and digital infrastructure as part of its strategy for growth across African markets.
That expansion is also visible outside financial services.
MTN is developing AI-ready data-centre infrastructure in South Africa and Nigeria through Africa Data Hub Holding. The group plans to participate as a minority investor alongside an undisclosed UAE-backed investor expected to provide most of the capital and technical expertise.
The first phase is expected to target about 150 megawatts of capacity as MTN seeks to capture growing African demand for artificial intelligence computing, cloud infrastructure and local data processing.
Although banking and data centres operate in different sectors, both investments reflect the same strategic shift. MTN increasingly wants to build businesses around the digital infrastructure and customer relationships created by its telecommunications networks.
Financial services could become particularly important because of the size of the group’s mobile-money ecosystem.
More than 70 million active MoMo customers already use MTN platforms for everyday financial activity. Expanding from transactions into deposits and direct lending could allow the group to deepen those relationships while creating additional sources of revenue.
Regulators will ultimately determine how far the strategy develops. Banking licences would subject MTN to financial rules that vary between countries, meaning the commercial opportunity will have to be assessed alongside capital requirements and regulatory conditions in each market.
MTN must also decide how much lending risk it wants to carry. Partnerships with banks allow the company to participate in credit markets without assuming the full risk of borrowers failing to repay, while direct lending could offer greater returns but expose the group to larger potential losses.
The company has therefore stopped short of presenting banking licences as a replacement for its existing partnerships. Instead, it is examining whether selected markets have reached the scale where taking deposits and assuming greater control over lending could make commercial sense.
That decision could have wider implications for Africa’s financial sector. A telecommunications company with more than 317 million subscribers and tens of millions of mobile-money customers moving further into banking would intensify competition between mobile operators, fintech companies and traditional financial institutions.
MTN has not yet become a conventional bank, and its plans remain at an exploratory stage. However, the direction of travel is becoming clearer as lending grows within its fintech business.
Mobile money gave African telecom operators a foothold in financial services that few anticipated when cellular networks first expanded across the continent. Banking licences could take that evolution considerably further, placing MTN closer to the centre of Africa’s rapidly changing digital financial system.
