Airtel Malawi Company yesterday announced its partnership with First Merchant Bank (FMB) which will allows Airtel subscribers to withdraw money from the bank’s ATMs.
Speaking at a press briefing at Airtel Headquarters offices in Lilongwe, Airtel Managing Director Charles Kamoto said that the synergy between mobile money and the banking sector has been one of the key opportunities that they capitalized and honed in as soon the company joined the financial sector as Airtel money over 5 years ago.
Kamoto added that the significance of the partnership will not only be relevant to the mobile service company but also to its customers as it will help them to transfer and send money to other mobile money wallets and also to withdraw money from FMB ATM’s using Airtel money mobile service.
“FMB will offer our mobile customers access to their 66 ATM’s countrywide with 24 hours access while Airtel money will offer FMB customers similar access to extended banking hours via robust mobile money infrastructure of 15,000 plus agents countrywide, this shows that our quest to grow and expand Airtel money mobile money service footprint will continue,” he explained.
On his part, FMB’s CEO Fernando Rodrigues said the bank being a universal bank that caters to all segments of the bankable population in Malawi continues to implement relevant measures aligned to expansion of financial services to people in the country.
He said there hope that this partnership will contribute significantly to the bank and the public at large.
The two partners will be offering four services to their customers. The services include auto allocation which allows Airtel agents to purchase e-value from any FMB branch and auto sweep whereby merchants that receive payment through Airtel money can have their e-value swept from their merchant e-wallets to their account within FMB.
Airtel money agents will also be able to link their e-wallets with their bank accounts through Bank push and pull.
Another service is Airtel money card less ATM withdrawal whereby FMB Bank will be offering mobile money withdrawals from the network of FMB ATMs.
