TANZANIA:Halotel praises mobile money interoperability impact

Dar es Salaam — Viettel Tanzania Public Limited Company, trading as Halotel, said yesterday that it had a wonderful performance in 2018 after doubling the number of its registered clients across a number of performance parameters.

Data produced by the telecommunication firm showed that active Halopesa customers rose tremendously from 358,217 in September 2017 to reach about 800,000 as of September 2018.

The Halotel subscribers crossed the four million-mark as of September 2018, a smooth growth from 3.7 million in September 2017. The company's managing director, Mr Nguyen Van Son, attributes the growth in active HaloPesa subscribers to improved services that the company launched in 2018.

"In short, we grew in almost all the performance parameters. During the year, we launched a number of new products and services, including our interoperability service which allows one to send and receive money from HaloPesa directly into wallets of other mobile money platforms. We also launched HaloYako loans. We simplified payment of government bills and we also made it easy for one to send money to over 20 banks, among others," he said.

HaloPesa had a total of only 10,367 active agents in 2017, but currently the number stands at 155,000. As a result, said Mr Son, revenue accrued from HaloPesa also rose by 183 per cent.

"We saw a 356 per cent increment in transaction value for HaloPesa and 167 per cent increment in transaction volume/count," he said. The registered achievements were a result of the massive investment in infrastructure that the company made in 2018. Working under the second phase of the government's Universal Communications Service Access Fund (UCSAF), Halotel successfully connected 240 villages in 2018. The company also rolled out its fibre optic network by 2,000 kilometres as it advanced its data infrastructure to new areas.

With such a wide network, said Mr Son, Halotel was able to remain a provider of choice when it comes high speed internet.

SOURCE: THE CITIZEN