Huawei joins WorldRemit in mobile money transfer deal for Africa

By Staff Writer 11 Jul 2017 1 Min Read Save

Last updated: 11 Jul 2017, 18:04

--FILE--People visit the stand of Huawei during the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2015 in Shanghai, China, 16 July 2015. Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei filed for 3,898 patents in 2015, making it the world's most patent-happy company for the second year in a row. Qualcomm, the US-based semiconductor company whose chips can be found in everything from the latest Xiaomi phone to Samsung's flagships, took second place. Chinese Huawei competitor ZTE rounded out the top three, with 2,155 filings of its own. In short, tech in China made a big showing in global patent filings in 2015, leaping 16 percent from its 2014 total.

JOHANNESBURG – Digital money transfer service WorldRemit has partnered with Chinese smartphone maker Huawei to enable the international transfer of money across Huawei’s mobile services in Africa, the companies said on Tuesday.

Mobile money services that allow customers to transfer funds using their phones have proved hugely popular in parts of Africa, particularly where people have less access to traditional bank accounts.

“International remittance is a very important mobile money service in Africa, and our partnership with WorldRemit will bring international remittances directly to Huawei’s customers across the continent,” David Chen, Vice-President of Huawei Southern Africa, said in a statement.

Safaricom’s mobile phone-based financial service M-Pesa in east Africa has already seen success in this market.

The partnership will allow London-based WorldRemit to connect to over 100 million mobile accounts currently using Huawei’s platform, which delivers basic banking transactions through its mobile money offerings on smartphones and basic handsets.

The deal will reduce the barrier of technical integrations with new mobile money operators to offer international remittances for mobile network operators to enable all Huawei partners to swiftly switch on this service, WorldRemit and Huawei said.

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