East African Business Week

KIGALI, RWANDA  - MTN Rwanda has lost its long-standing monopoly in mobile money transfer service after rival Tigo launched the same service recently.
The Central Bank has praised the mobile money transfer service saying that it will increase financial inclusion and boost liquidity in the banks.
Rwanda seeks to increase access to formal financial services to 80% by 2017 from the current less than 30%, according to the central bank.
Mobile Money Transfer service, which has few physical boundaries compared to conventional banking where one has to move to carry out a financial transaction, has been hailed as one of the services to help government meet the goal.
MTN Rwanda which launched the service last year, had transferred more than Rf12 billion this year, an indication that the service is rapidly attracting more users.
With the launch of Tigo Cash, which brings in competition, mobile money transfers are set to shoot up, although there is no hope that the price of transferring and receiving money will go down.
Tigo targets the middle class customers for its Tigo Cash, described as 'mobile wallet'.
 Whereas the company says the service is available countrywide, currently, the telecom firm does not have network coverage in all parts of the country.
Unlike Tigo, MTN network is nearly available in most parts of Rwanda, something that could take time for Tigo to challenge MTN.
Banks are currently befriending telecom companies to develop more applications to link banking services with telecom services. This is expected to ignite banking revolution in the technology led-world.