Cash still dominates everyday payments in South Africa, making the country a difficult market for MoMo, MTN’s mobile-money and digital financial services platform. But as South Africa overhauls its payments infrastructure and opens the market to more competition, MTN sees an opportunity to change how South Africans pay.

MTN wants MoMo to become a broader financial and transactional platform, linking consumers and merchants to payments, credit, remittances and other digital services across its African footprint.

South Africa will be an important test of whether the mobile-money model that worked in less banked markets can be adapted to a more mature financial system. MTN says the answer lies not in competing with banks on basic transactions, but in using the country’s evolving payments infrastructure to build a wider digital financial platform for consumers and merchants.

The strategy includes leveraging new payment infrastructure, pursuing new licences as they become available, and expanding into lending and other financial services. MTN also sees an opportunity among consumers and businesses that still rely heavily on cash, as well as smaller merchants that have historically had limited access to financial services. That matters in a market where the payments landscape is changing, but adoption habits and regulatory expectations remain important constraints.

“The national payments infrastructure is moving very fast. This is infrastructure that we want to leverage to penetrate the market,” MTN Group Fintech chief executive officer (CEO) Serigne Dioum said at the company’s Fintech Summit in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

South Africa is only one part of the plan. MTN says MoMo now has more than 70 million monthly active users across 14 markets and processed more than 13 billion transactions worth over $330 billion in the first half of 2026. Its ecosystem includes more than 2.3 million merchants and one million agents, while international remittances exceeded $3 billion during the period.

“We started by giving customers access to financial services. Now we want to move from access to active participation,” Dioum said.

That means customers using their wallets to pay merchants, access loans, save, send money across borders and buy other services. Dioum pointed to Rwanda and Uganda, where customers can send money across borders through MoMo with an experience designed to resemble a domestic transfer.

MTN is also building an open Application Programming Interface (API) that allows partners to integrate their services into its ecosystem. The company says it works with banks, utilities, merchants and other businesses across its markets, underscoring how mobile money platforms are increasingly being built around partnerships rather than standalone apps.

“Africa’s digital economy will increasingly depend on our ability to connect markets, enable cross-border payments, support regional trade and allow people and businesses to participate seamlessly across borders,” Mcebisi Jonas, MTN Group chairman, said.

As MoMo expands into lending, remittances, merchant payments and other financial services, MTN will face greater regulatory requirements around how those services are delivered and how customer money and data are protected.

Lesetja Kganyago, governor of the South African Reserve Bank, said the country’s payments system needs to evolve alongside technology.

“Other countries are ahead of us, and we need to catch up,” Kganyago said.

He said innovation and regulation, particularly in payments, need to work together. The Reserve Bank is moving towards an activity-based regulatory model, under which banks and fintechs offering the same payment services, such as e-money issuance and payment acceptance, would face similar regulatory expectations.

The model would give companies such as MTN more room to compete in payments while maintaining requirements around consumer protection, safeguarding funds and operational resilience.

“The pace of innovation creates tremendous opportunities for Africa, but sustainable progress depends on ensuring that trust keeps pace,” Nikiwe Tanga, MTN Group Fintech’s chief legal officer, said.