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MoneyGram (MGI) Strengthens Presence in Africa Via Alliances

MoneyGram International, Inc. MGI recently collaborated with four mobile wallet and fintech payment providers — Airtel, Thunes, InTouch and MFS Africa.

While digital services provided by MoneyGram will be accessible on Thunes and InTouch from this week itself, the same services will be available at Airtel and MFS Africa within the coming months.

The alliances are intended to extend MoneyGram’s mobile wallet capabilities across 28 markets in Africa. The three fintech firms along with Airtel, which is best known for offering telecommunication and mobile money services with an established presence across 14 countries, will help MoneyGram to serve the rising demand for mobile money transactions across the continent more effectively via its robust mobile wallet capabilities.

We believe the abovementioned collaborations highlight MoneyGram’s efforts to capitalize on growing opportunities in Africa, which has been recognized as the fastest growing mobile money transaction continents in the world, per the GSMA's 2019 State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money. Notably, the continent has an estimated 190 million active wallets.

In fact, the mobile money industry is not only witnessing strong growth in Africa but has also been accounting for around $730 billion global transactions in 2019.

Coming back to the company’s latest move, these partnerships are likely to benefit its account deposit and mobile wallet transactions, which soared to 165% last month. The figure indicates an improvement from 148% reported in the second quarter. Increased access to mobile wallet capabilities will ultimately result in strong digital business for the company, with the help of which it has digitally connected more than 70 countries.

Needless to say, the four tie-ups of MoneyGram are well timed as customers are increasingly opting for digitals channels for payment purposes owing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Other Notable Tie-ups

MoneyGram has always been striving to enhance its digital services suite, backed by partnerships and constant technological upgradations. Since May of this year, the company has joined forces with Digital Financial Services, Global Money Express, Al Rajhi Bank, Uber Technologies UBER and E9Pay. These collaborations have enabled the company to serve various markets more efficiently but also strengthened its global foothold.

Price Performance

Shares of this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company have gained 52.4% on a year-to-date basis against the industry’s decline of 13.4%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

 

The price performance looks decent in comparison to its peers, including Square, Inc. SQ and PayPal Holdings, Inc. PYPL, both carrying a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Notably, Square and PayPal have gained 142.6% and 83.9%, respectively, on a year-to-date basis.

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