Vodacom, Tigo come together, allow each others’ mobile money offerings to play nice

So much has been written about the good that mobile payments have done in Africa, that it’s easy to forget that the various offerings in place aren’t exactly perfect. It’s taken until now for instance for Vodacom and Tigo to allow their competing offerings compatible.

The two mobile giants today announced that M-Pesa and Tigo Pesa customers in Tanzania will soon be able to send and receive money directly into each other’s wallets, following the signing of an inter-operability agreement between the two companies.

It’s also a pretty clear sign that while M-Pesa’s 7-million customers give it a fairly substantial edge over Tigo Pesa, which has 4-million customers, neither is likely to own the market completely.

That did not however stop either from claiming the agreement as a major victory.

Speaking at the signing ceremony in Dar es Salaam, Rene Meza, Vodacom Tanzania’s Managing Director said “This is a great evolution of the mobile money service in Tanzania. Our customers will soon be able to directly access the money received through Tigo Pesa and use it for whatever purposes they may have without necessarily having to cash it out.”

Tigo parent company Millicom’s Executive Vice President for Africa, Arthur Bastings meanwhile said: “With Tigo Pesa customers will now have Africa’s first universal mobile money exchange system. They will be able to safely and securely transact with millions more people across the country. It’s another first for Tigo Pesa and Tanzania. Following the success of the service with Airtel and Zantel, we hope many more Tanzanians will choose mobile money so that everyone benefits and we can extend financial inclusion even further. We also intend to pioneer similar agreements with networks elsewhere.”

That said, it seems that Tigo Pesa will now be able to pay for the same TV subscriptions, Flights, Insurance services, Utilities, Taxes, School fees, Pension Contributions and Loan offerings as their M-Pesa counterparts. That’s not insignificant from a consumer point of view.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) formulated the mobile-wallet-to wallet standards with support from Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA), (standards) which have been the basis of the interoperability discussions between mobile network operators in Tanzania.

It’s expected that the agreement will come into effect by the end of the year, with Vodacom also set to upgrade its M-Pesa offering in the country.

Image: Digital Democracy via Flickr.