MTN Group CEO — Africa’s Fintech Market Has Room for Banks and Telcos to Play and Collaborate For nearly two decades, the entry of telcos into Africa’s financial services space has sparked everything from fierce turf wars to uneasy partnerships, with collaboration, suspicion, and rivalry varying sharply across markets. Speaking on the sidelines of the just-ended B20 Summit in Johannesburg, the MTN Group President & CEO, Ralph Mupita, spoke to CEO East Africa Magazine’s Paul Murungi, who, among other questions, asked him whether banks and telcos can truly coexist—or even collaborate—in Africa’s fast-expanding fintech landscape, including the once-unthinkable possibility of retail banking units merging or integrating with the fintech arms of telecom operators.

How do you rate Uganda’s performance with MTN’s continental portfolio, both in digital adoption but also returns, compared to other African markets? 

Yes, as MTN, we are operating in 16 markets, of which Uganda is one of our key markets. 

In fact, Uganda was the second market that MTN went into in its international expansion. We started in South Africa, we went into Rwanda and quickly moved to Uganda.

So, MTN Uganda has been a big part of the MTN family all this time. Uganda, in many respects, is the model operation. The macroeconomic environment has been pretty stable, the currency, inflation, all very well managed, which creates the opportunity to sustain investment over time.

When we look over a long period of time, MTN Uganda has driven stellar performance. It is a very strong connectivity business where we see more and more opportunities to get more people in Uganda to use the internet more regularly.

So, we’re looking at ways to reduce the cost of devices, as an example, and to expand our network, particularly in the peri-urban and rural areas, to connect more and more people across.

Then we have a very strong mobile money fintech business that is our second biggest across all our markets. 

So, when you take that into totality, a conducive macroeconomic environment, regulatory certainty, you’re able to engage with the regulators in a very sensible and constructive way, and the performance of those two businesses means that Uganda has been a really strong business for us as MTN over the last 25 years or so. 

In the early days, many large banks viewed telecoms as competitors, but we now see more collaboration.  Looking ahead, do you see a scenario where retail lending units of some banks eventually merge or integrate with a telco’s fintech arm, or is that still a far-fetched possibility?

I’m not so sure that we’re going to see the integration. The way I look at it is that there is a deep need for further financial inclusion in Africa.  Africans in many parts of the continent still don’t have access to decent financial inclusion or the ability to make payments to each other and to merchants, as an example.

So, we see a significant financial inclusion opportunity on the continent for another decade plus, and there’s enough space for traditional banks and fintechs or a combination of both to be able to participate in this opportunity.

As a market leader, what are some measures in place to deal with data costs, which remain a major concern? 

The thing that we really need to think about is, obviously, there’s an affordability issue that we have to think through, but we do need components of digital infrastructure to be in place.  

So, one of the issues that we would welcome is the release of the 5G spectrum, which is a very efficient technology.

It’s much more efficient than 3G and can create the ability for the operators to be a lot more effective. I think that would be a very important part of dealing with the cost of connectivity overall. 

 There’s a significant amount of investment still required, to be clear, around fiberising the network and so forth. So, one has to take a holistic view when one is looking at connectivity, not just the cost of data, but what capabilities are made available for the operators. 

So, my big call-out would be that the release of the 5G spectrum would be a game-changer to enable faster, more comprehensive digital inclusion. And I think over time, you will see that the costs will ultimately come down.

Geopolitical fragmentation is a challenge, especially for African countries. How does MTN think that can be addressed? 

Look, I mean, we are living in times where the geopolitical challenges are actually more significant than they have been. 

We’ve had to find ways to navigate these challenges. In the short term, if you look at the year 2025, the macro has been fairly benign. Currencies have strengthened or stayed stable, inflation has come down, and oil prices have also come down. And so, we’ve had to find ways to navigate while being mindful of these kinds of geopolitical tensions.

So, we are aware of them, but they’re not creating conditions that we’re not able to do the business that we’ve intended to do.