Lion International Bank and Somali Micro Finance in partnership with Ethiopian based technology service provider BelCash Technology Solution PLC have launched the official pilot of the HelloCash mobile money services.
The HelloCash mobile money platform will provide financial services to all Ethiopians. It will enable existing and potential customers of Lion International Bank and Somali Micro Finance to Deposit money to their accounts, Withdraw, Transfer and make payments.
The pilot of HelloCash mobile money service is underway in three parts in Ethiopia with locations consisting a mix of agent outlets and branches.
According to the three companies, HelloCash Mobile Money would make financial services available to more Ethiopian, especially at the grassroots in order to drive financial inclusion in the country.
One of the uniqueness of HelloCash mobile money services, the companies says is its interoperability and shared infrastructure features. The system is designed for multi banks and MFI’s to be interconnected and offer the mobile money service to their respective customers, therefore, partnering financial institutions are able to share each other’s agent and branch network to serve each other’s customers.
This allow any customers of any partnering bank to visit any agent or branches to conduct financial services regardless of which bank customers belongs too. The sharing of agent network allow partnering banks to optimize their investment as well as increase national wide service coverage.
‘’This is only the beginning of what seems to be an irreversible step to reinforce Financial Inclusion in the country’’ BelCash International CEO, Mr. Mountaga Vince Diop said.
BelCash Technology Solutions PLC provides the Banks and the Micro Finances, Go-to-Market turn-key mobile money solutions (including capacity building, business and operational models, hardware, disaster recovery and Call center facilities) and facilitate the penetration of Mobile and Agent Banking in the Ethiopian Financial landscape.
The Financial Institutions providing HelloCash in Ethiopia are confident to build a unique network of more than 20.000 agents across all Ethiopia within the 3 coming years.
