MTN Group, Africa’s largest telecommunications operator, is exploring banking licences in selected markets as it seeks to expand lending from its own balance sheet, Chief Executive Ralph Mupita said this week.

Mupita told journalists in Johannesburg on Tuesday that lending is now one of the fastest-growing parts of MTN’s mobile money business, alongside payments and e-commerce.

“We’re beginning to explore, where it makes sense and where there are large customer bases (and) significant floats in wallets, whether it may make sense to have some sort of banking licence that enables us to take deposits,” Mupita said.

MTN currently offers loans through partnerships with banks rather than lending directly. Securing banking licences would let the group accept customer deposits and gradually shift toward lending from its own balance sheet, exposing it to greater credit risk than its current partnership model.

Mupita said any move would be selective, focusing on markets where MTN already has large numbers of mobile money customers and significant funds held in digital wallets. He added that partnership-based lending would continue alongside any balance-sheet lending the company pursues.

The banking exploration follows years of rapid growth in MTN’s mobile money platform, known as MoMo, which operates across 16 African markets.

MTN’s mobile money ecosystem processed 13 billion transactions worth $330.5 billion in the six months to the end of June 2026, according to the company’s first-half results. Loans facilitated through the platform reached $2.7 billion over the same period.

Fintech revenue rose 1.4% on a reported basis to 14.9 billion rand ($913.6 million) in the first half, or 13.3% in constant-currency terms, MTN said.

Growth was slowed by a temporary suspension of airtime-advance services in Nigeria and disruptions to Uganda’s agent network. Advanced-services revenue, which includes payments and lending, rose 31.8%.

For the full 2025 financial year, MTN said its mobile money platform served about 70 million customers, with transactions exceeding $500 billion in value. Loans facilitated through its BankTech operations totalled $3.5 billion in 2025, up more than 80% from the previous year.

MTN has also been restructuring its fintech operations. The company completed the structural separation of its mobile money business in Ghana into a standalone entity in April 2026.

In Nigeria, MTN Nigeria Communications Plc said in April it would sell a 60% stake in its fintech subsidiaries, MoMo Payment Service Bank and Y’ello Digital Financial Services, to MTN Group in a deal valued at 152.06 billion naira.

Mupita also outlined plans for MTN to develop artificial intelligence-enabled data centres in South Africa and Nigeria through a venture called Africa Data Hub Holding, in partnership with an undisclosed United Arab Emirates-backed investor.

MTN will hold a minority stake in the venture, with its partner providing most of the capital and technical expertise, he said. The initial phase targets around 150 megawatts of data centre capacity across the two countries.

MTN’s push into banking comes as rival telecoms operators expand their own financial services arms. Airtel Africa, majority owned by India’s Bharti Airtel, has confirmed London as its preferred venue for a planned initial public offering of its mobile money unit, Airtel Money, in the second half of 2026.

Airtel Money’s active customer base grew 23.3% year-on-year to 56.5 million in the three months to the end of June, while quarterly transactions reached an annualised value of more than $245 billion, Airtel Africa has said.

Media reports have put a possible valuation for the listing at around $10 billion and proceeds of $1.5 billion to $2 billion, though Airtel Africa has not confirmed those figures.

The listing was originally planned for the first half of 2026 but was postponed, with Airtel Africa citing unfavourable market conditions.

Both MTN and Airtel are competing with digital lenders such as OPay and Moniepoint, which have expanded rapidly across Africa’s credit and payments markets in recent years.

Africa’s mobile money sector has grown from a tool primarily used for basic money transfers into a broader financial services ecosystem encompassing payments, credit, savings and, increasingly, banking.

Low levels of traditional banking penetration across much of the continent have allowed telecoms-led platforms to become a primary financial gateway for millions of customers, particularly in markets such as Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria and Rwanda.

MTN reported service revenue of 115.3 billion rand for the first half of 2026, up 17.5% in constant currency, with Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda among its fastest-growing operations. The group said it served more than 317 million subscribers across its markets as of the first half of the year.