Vodacom boss Shameel Joosub announced that the Financial Services Business is integral to its purpose-led business model, the largest component of its new services revenue and a clear strategic priority.
Vodacom Financial Services posted a 12.5% growth to R2 billion in the third quarter to 31 December 2021, as it continues to scale user adoption, new products, and services.
According to Vodacom, financial services revenue growth is supported by ongoing platform adoption and product expansion.
“Our M-Pesa platform, including Safaricom, processed $28.2 billion of transaction value per month in the third quarter, up 16.1%,” said Joosub.
In South Africa, financial services revenue growth was underpinned by Airtime Advance product, where Vodacom advanced airtime amounting to 45.4% of total prepaid recharges to support customers with access to connectivity.
“The outlook for our financial services business was further enhanced by the highly anticipated launch of our South African super-app, VodaPay, during October 2021,” said Joosub.
“The app brings together world-class consumer and merchant capabilities and is supported by Alipay technology.”
Vodacom said the app reached 1.4 million downloads and 1.0 million registered users by 31 December 2021.
“The strong consumer adoption accelerated the merchant on-boarding pipeline, which is set to add further depth and breadth to the app’s digital mall,” said Joosub.
“We see VodaPay as a precursor to M-Pesa’s evolution, supporting accelerated growth across our financial services’ businesses and assisting us in connecting the next 100 million African customers so that no one is left behind.”