Africa-Press – Angola. The North American mobile network operator Africell already has a license from the National Bank of Angola (BNA) to operate in the “business” of mobile payments, mobile money, in the country, within the framework of the financial inclusion of the population.
The information was released on Friday by the deputy governor of the National Bank of Angola, Pedro Castro e Silva, on the sidelines of the official launch of the “Regulatory Sandbox” platform.
Thus, Africell, with more than five million subscribers, in addition to the national operator, Unitel (Unitelmoney) will also enter the mobile payments market in Angola.
Without revealing names, Pedro Castro e Silva said that two other companies are being analyzed by the BNA on whether or not to enter this mobile payments market.
Other licensed payment institutions are operational in the market, such as Unitelmoney (Unitel), e-kwanza (BAI bank), PayPay Africa, AkiPaga, E-kumbu (Sol bank) and Guita (BNI bank).
“We are going to give time for the market to understand and trust these solutions so that they can become alternatives to banking”, underlines the vice-governor of the National Bank of Angola.
According to the person in charge, it is through these solutions that the BNA intends to overcome difficulties, especially floods in automatic teller machines (ATMs).
Millions of kwanzas moved
According to the deputy governor of the BNA, daily, there are a number of movements in the order of two, 2.5 million kwanzas, from balance inquiries, withdrawals, payments, transfers made at ATM and TPA – automatic payment terminal and express multicamera.
The highest peak was recorded on December 23, 2022, with records in the order of three million kwanzas / day, almost three times more.
“It is natural to observe these queues at ATMs, but we are resolving this issue”, minimized Pedro Castro e Silva, maintaining that there has been heavy investment in mobile payments in Angola.
According to the official, it is with the aforementioned mobile payment solutions that the BNA intends to overcome the difficulties encountered at ATMs.
These solutions, he continued, in other realities on the African continent have solved this problem, noting that the same ones have existed in Angola for about two years and six months.
As an example, one of the providers, Unitel (Unitelmoney) already has around one million and 500 thousand customers, after the launch of this solution in mid-2021.
As for delays in operations, he admits that there are transactions that could take place 24 hours a day, but due to the integration of systems between commercial banks, the Interbank Services Company (Emis) and the BNA, this still does not happen.
At the meeting of the BNA’s Financial Stability Committee, held this week, a new initiative was launched on the need to work again with Emis and banks to determine what is happening so that certain operations take a long time to be executed.
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