The Zhitong Finance App learned that Ericsson (ERIC.US) is developing a fintech business to prepare for mobile payments in developing countries.
Currently, Ericsson's software supports more than one-fifth of the world's mobile transactions, providing services for more than 400 million mobile wallet accounts in 24 countries. This makes Ericsson one of the largest white label platforms in the world.
Africa is a key market for Michael Wallis-Brown, the newly appointed head of the mobile financial services sector.
Wallis-Brown said, “We now only account for 10% of the African market; we can reach 50%.” “This is a huge increase for us.”
He said that Ericsson has an “active expansion plan” while seeking to enter new markets, possibly Europe and the US. Wallis-Brown considers himself a fintech veteran and has worked for a long time at rival Nokia and startups. He declined to disclose revenue data for his division or details of its business-to-business licensing model.
The platform enables ordinary people, including many who currently have no access to banking services, to access basic financial services such as withdrawing money, transferring money, and storing funds. There are also more advanced services, such as various merchant and e-commerce payments, microfinance, and insurance.
Ericsson said on Tuesday that it has extended its 10-year partnership with Africa's largest mobile operator MTN Group Ltd. MTN already has 63 million active users on its mobile platform. The transition to public cloud deployments means “they can now scale exponentially.”