Following a partnership between Orange Money in Côte d’Ivoire and Airtel Money in Burkina Faso, customers of both competing services can now use their mobile phones to send money to each other.

This is the first time Orange customers will be able to send and receive money to or from people based in a country outside the operator group’s own footprint.

It is also the first time that people living in Burkina Faso will be able to send money to contacts in Côte d’Ivoire using their phones.

The partnership builds on the existing ‘Orange Money International Transfer’ offer, which enables Orange Money customers based in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali to carry out cross-border money transfers.

Since its introduction in July 2013, the service has signed up over 200,000 users, Orange said in a statement.

With “Orange Money International Transfer”, Orange Money customers can use their mobile phones to transfer electronic money in real-time.

The customer connects to their Orange Money account on their mobile phone, and enters the recipient’s number and the amount to be sent.

Funds are then immediately available in the mobile wallet of the beneficiary, who can then pay bills, purchase goods, make transfers or make a withdrawal at a Orange Money distribution point.

Orange Money is available in 13 countries in Africa and the Middle East and currently has over 13 million customers.

More and more Orange subscribers in Africa and the Middle East are signing up for its mobile money service, according to the operator’s 2014 results.

While the operator’s overall number of customers in the region grew by 12 per cent to 97.5 million (end-December 2014), the Orange Money base delivered a growth rate of 51 per cent.

The company introduced a similar pan-African service between Orange and Ecobank last month.

The trend continues in Africa. One recent example was an agreement to enable M-Pesa customers in Kenya (run by Safaricom) and Tanzania (run by Vodafone) to send money to one another.