Madagascar is only the second African country after Tanzania to roll out interoperable mobile money services nationwide.

All three of the islands’s operator services, Airtel Money, mVola and Orange Money, are signed up to the agreement, said the GSMA.

The GSMA Mobile Money programme worked with the three operators on the initiative.

The first full interoperability agreement in Africa was in Tanzania. It was announced in February this year. Tigo, Airtel and Zantel initially joined together in 2014 and were joined by Vodacom in early 2016.

Interoperability drives more P2P money transfer activity between individuals on different networks. Without interoperability, users are limited to only sending money to those on the same network.