Namibia’s largest operator by connections, MTC, revealed it was at an advanced stage of developing a mobile money service, Windhoek Observer reported, with the proposition set to challenge in the country’s bank-led sector.

In an interview with the newspaper, the company’s corporate affairs manager John Ekongo said mobile money services were the “right path to take”, with plans to provide a range of retail and online purchases on the platform in addition to cash transfer services.

The country’s mobile payments sector is currently dominated by digital banks, with MTC itself linking up with MobiPay in 2014 to launch a mobile money service using the operator’s branding.

Although details on its latest project were vague, it would appear the new proposition is being led by the operator, though it is being worked on with a technology partner.

MTC is the largest operator in Namibia by far: GSMA Intelligence figures for Q4 2019 showed it held an 88 per cent market share on 2.7 million connections.