Mobile money turf war

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Challenger M-PESA Ethiopia and the incumbent state-backed telecom company Ethio Telecom are locking horns again. This time, the Safaricom-owned mobile money service said Ethio Telecom is blocking access to its new telco-agnostic app, stunting distribution and causing frustration for expectant users.

What's happening? On December 1, M-PESA Ethiopia launched “M-PESA Lehulm,” built to work with any phone number, after receiving approval from the National Bank of Ethiopia (for mobile money) and the Information Network Security Administration (INSA), the country's signals intelligence agency. Yet, four days later, Ethio Telecom users were still unable to download the app on their mobile devices, according to M-PESA Ethiopia.

The tension: Frustrated by the alleged anti-competitive behaviour, the mobile money operator issued a public statement calling on regulators to intervene. Ethio Telecom has not responded to the statement.

Between the lines: Ethio Telecom, with over 80 million subscribers (about 60% of the population), wields significant power in Ethiopia’s telecoms industry, and is also becoming a super app. In the last five years, it has launched mobile money, e-commerce, food delivery, e-transport, and card payment services. This puts it atop a market-defining role as an infrastructure provider for many tech entrants in the country.

State of play: A July World Bank report highlighted Ethio Telecom’s monopolistic tendencies due to its position of power. Ethiopia previously ran a closed-economy experiment, heavily restricting foreign players’ entry. However, under recent government efforts, the country has become liberal, famously allowing foreign banks to operate in the space for the first time in half a century.

Safaricom Ethiopia launched services in 2022, and M‑PESA mobile money followed in 2023. The mobile money service has been growing steadily since then. As of Safaricom's H1 2025 report, M-PESA Ethiopia made KES 8.7 million ($67,275) in revenue, declining sharply by 45% year-on-year. It reported having about 3.4 million active users, a small dent compared to Telebirr’s (mobile money competitor owned by Ethio Telecom) 30 million.

Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), the government agency responsible for the regulation and management of businesses, has given point-of-sale (POS) operators until January 1, 2026, to register their businesses or risk losing their terminals.

Why are they doing this? The CAC says the industry is flooded with unregistered operators, in violation of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA 2020) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) rules, and that the government is tired of the opacity. And with over 8.36 million registered POS terminals processing ₦10.51 trillion ($7 billion) in Q1 2025 alone, that pressure was always going to hit a turning point. 

The CAC had initially announced in May 2024 that PoS agents—most of which work with major fintechs like OPay, Palmpay, and Moniepoint—must have registered their businesses by July 7, 2024. Now, along with these new rules, the agency has threatened to blacklist fintech companies aiding unregistered PoS operators.

Must be tough to be a PoS operator in Nigeria: This new rule sits on top of a list of recent directives (crackdowns, really) meted out by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), including geotagging requirements, rules limiting agents to one operator, capped daily withdrawal limits of ₦1.2 million ($816), and a directive banning PoS terminals from operating outside a 10-metre radius of their registered address.

The big question is why? PoS terminals have become Nigeria’s de facto cash machine, filling gaps left by dried-up and sometimes inaccessible automated teller machines (ATMs). However, this ubiquity has allegedly made them a potential corridor for fraud and money laundering. Regulators are attempting to clean up the ecosystem and regain oversight with new regulations.

KCB Bank, Kenya’s largest bank by assets, and global payments network provider, Visa, have partnered to roll out a contactless payment setup that turns any Android phone into a payment terminal. 

Here's how it works: ‘Tap to Phone’ lets a merchant using a near-field communication (NFC)-enabled Android smartphone accept card payments. When a customer taps their contactless card on the back of the phone, the phone’s NFC reader captures the encrypted card data. Visa’s tokenisation technology handles security by replacing the card’s sensitive information with a digital token, so the card number itself is never exposed. Once tapped, the payment moves through Visa’s system and is deposited into the merchant’s account, just like a normal card transaction.

This feels familiar: KCB and Visa have been rehearsing for this moment. In 2023, both companies launched their first wave of NFC and contactless payments. Regionally, Vodacom Tanzania used Visa’s tokenisation technology to expand M-PESA's payment suite by introducing the Tap & Pay feature in late November. This shows that East Africa is steadily moving away from hardware toward software-based acceptance.

So, what does this mean? For mobile money and point of sale (PoS) operators, it means pressure if they don't keep up with the times. Tap to Phone makes it easier for cards to be used in small shops, and when a merchant’s smartphone is the terminal, they don't need expensive payment hardware anymore.

Here's the poser: Software PoS (softPoS) apps need NFC-enabled devices to work. While most (newer) smartphones in Kenya are NFC-enabled, budget phones are not; so this throws a question of affordability into the equation. But that's a headache for KCB Bank and Visa to navigate.

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The World Wide Web3

Source:

Coin Name	Current Value	Day	Month
Bitcoin	$91,125	+ 1.83%	- 11.54%
Ether	$3,109	- 1.93%	+ 9.56%
Yooldo	$0.3948	+ 0.00%	+ 8.93%
Solana	$133.45	+ 0.62%	- 17.47%

* Data as of 03.00 AM WAT, December 8, 2025.

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Written by: Opeyemi Kareem and Emmanuel Nwosu

Edited by: Emmanuel Nwosu & Ganiu Oloruntade