MTN Group
launches
Africa’s first
AI service for
Mobile Money
Wirecard cooperates with
Royal Air Maroc to integrate
digital payments
M
TN Group has launched Africa’s first
Mobile Money (MoMo) Artificial
Intelligence service or ‘chatbot’. The
assistant enables customers to engage with
MTN’s MoMo services, including payments,
on various social media platforms such as
WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and
via SMS. The service will also be included in
MTN’s own newly released advanced instant
messaging service ‘Ayoba’. The chatbot is
an Artificial Intelligence guide that assists
users to navigate MTN’s MoMo services
and provide other useful information.
This innovation leverages messaging and
Artificial Intelligence to drive customer
engagement and enhance their MTN MoMo
experience. “We are passionate about
bringing the power of our mobile money
solutions to more than 60 million customers
across Africa over the next few years,” said
Rob Shuter, MTN Group President and CEO.
“Harnessing modern technologies like
Artificial Intelligence can improve in scale,
how MTN interacts with customers, enabling
them to reach us anytime and anywhere,
through a variety of channels including
social networks and messaging applications.
“We can also harness the power of Artificial
Intelligence to provide our customers with
the right answers to their questions at the
right time. We are committed to improving
financial inclusion with a range of solutions
aimed at addressing the needs of various
market segments. While MTN has made
great strides in these areas, we will continue
working to deliver our vision for MTN to
become one of the largest Fintech players
across our footprint.”
W
irecard, the global innovation
leader for digital financial
technology, is handling payments for
online and travel agency bookings for
Royal Air Maroc, Morocco’s national
airline, and one of Africa’s leading and
fastest growing airlines.
In addition to processing all online Visa,
Mastercard and Maestro payments for
Royal Air Maroc, Wirecard also handles
credit card payments made via travel
agency or airline agent ticket transaction
settlement systems, such as ARC (Accounts
Receivable Conversion) and IATA’s Billing
and Settlement Plan (BSP), which serves
more than 400 participating airlines.
“To reflect our global presence and reach,
we are constantly broadening the scope
www.intelligentcio.com
of our service offerings, which includes
ensuring a convenient and easy payment
experience no matter how our passengers
choose to book flights with us,” said
Yassine Berrada, CFO at Royal Air Maroc.
“We are delighted to be cooperating with
Wirecard in the area of digital payments.”
Eckart Reiche, Vice President Global Airline
Sales at Wirecard, added: “The large part of
air travel bookings are now paid for online
and this trend is set to grow exponentially
as payments become more digital.
“We are proud to leverage on our
expertise in global digital payments
for Royal Air Maroc, and add another
national airline to our already extensive
client portfolio.” n
INTELLIGENTCIO
13