MTN has joined Vodacom in tapping Chinese tech giant Ant International to boost its fintech business through a new super app.The new partnership is expected to roll out first in Nigeria, MTN’s largest market, in the third quarter of this year. Africa’s largest mobile provider has struggled to gain traction in Nigeria due to a number of factors. The group will be looking to entice more customers to the service through the partnership. The company’s mobile money MoMo platform closed 2025 with 3.7-million active wallets in Nigeria, far lower than its target of 30-million to 40-million. The large unbanked population in that country presents a big opportunity. In addition, Nigerian authorities have been cautious about granting full mobile money operator licences to telecom providers, preferring the payment service bank (PSB) model that restricts the range of services that companies such as MTN can offer.The situation is very different in Ghana, where MTN’s MoMo poses a major threat to the country’s established financial institutions. In Ghana almost two thirds of the company’s customers have active mobile money wallets. MTN said the new roll out will introduce a super app platform “designed to enhance user experience, deepen digital inclusion and enable a next-generation ecosystem for digital finance, lifestyle and commerce services around MoMo”.By leveraging Ant International’s technology, “MTN is evolving MoMo to enable stronger ecosystem integration” through a mini app platform, enhanced fraud prevention and “richer engagement features for consumers and merchants”. Based in Singapore, Ant International is the global arm of the Chinese fintech giant Ant Group. MTN said the partnership represents “a major step in building a more resilient and future-ready digital ecosystem”.In similar fashion, rival Vodacom teamed up with Alipay, a unit of Ant Group, to launch an e-commerce super app platform similar to China’s WeChat in 2020. “This partnership aligns with MTN Group’s ambition of leading digital solutions for Africa’s progress by leveraging scale, technology and strong global partnerships,” said MTN CEO Ralph Mupita. “It reflects our commitment to transforming the customer experience at scale by delivering a more seamless, secure and intuitive MoMo platform that advances digital inclusion and expands economic participation.”MTN is continuing the work of carving out its fintech business into a separate standalone entity. It operates separately with its own management, customer base and reporting structure. MTN has long argued that the value of such assets is not truly reflected in its share price. The structural separation has entailed a complex process for the group that has to be carried out in every country individually. The group has received key approvals for the process in Uganda and Ghana.In April, MTN said it had completed the fintech business separation in Ghana. In January 2024, payments giant Mastercard invested R3.8bn in MTN’s fintech business as part of a plan to partner with industry experts to help grow the new revenue line. The transaction values the unit at $5.2bn (R86bn).