Ericsson has gained a foothold with operator Millicom, the group with high hopes for mobile financial services, by supplying a mobile money platform to local unit Tigo Senegal.

Tigo actually launched a money service earlier this year but the Swedish vendor has just announced it is the supplier behind it.

In fact, this is the first money platform Ericsson has supplied to the Millicom group and it will be eager to leverage a wider opening.

Millicom has ambitions for mobile financial services across its footprint, which spans Africa and Latin America. Its most important market for such services is Tanzania.

Tigo Cash in Senegal enables users to make payments, store, transfer and withdraw money using their handsets.

Diego Camberos, managing director of Millicom in Senegal, said: “Mobile financial services are highly important to our subscribers and to drive continued success, it was important for us to speed up an easy to use, secure and reliable offering to market.”

“Ericsson has been an important partner for us in launching Tigo Cash to our entire subscriber base, ensuring that we’re able to scale to meet the high demand we anticipate as sign-ups continue to increase,” he added.