In furtherance of its support to government’s digital financial inclusion strategy to ease liquidity crisis, telecommunication giant LoneStar Cell MTN and the United Bank of Africa (UBA) have launched the Push and Pull mobile money service in a partnership to link customers’ bank accounts to their MTN mobile money numbers.
The launch of the MTN – UBA Push and Pull mobile money product held Wednesday, 5 February at a hotel up Mamba Point comes following similar launch of the service by MTN and one of its partner banks earlier on 27 December 2019 at LoneStar MTN’s head office in Congo Town.
During the launch Wednesday, LoneStar Cell MTN Chief Executive Officer Madam UcheOfodile said the product allows people to have access no matter where they are, no matter where they sit.She expresses appreciation to the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) for its work, recalling that last year the CBL indicated that it wants everybody to have access.
To further demonstrate the significance of the Push and Pull service, Madam Ofodile takes a moment urging the audience at the launch to just imagine someone being very sick and hospitalized, but there’s no way that patient can get access to his or her account at the bank.Madam Ofodile draws the audience’s attention to how the Push and Pull service can ease the worries of no cash to settle medical bills and others, saying you can stay right in the
hospital and transfer money from your Push and Pull wallet.
At MTN, she says they allow people to have access no matter where they are or no matter where they sit.
With this partnership, UBA Liberia Managing Director OlalekanBalogun says employers can pay all their employees’ salaries electronically and enable the staffers to assess their phones at their convenient time, saying it’s actually a financial inclusion.He adds that this is also going to address the issue of lot of people keeping money under their mattresses and the situation where there are complaints of no cash [in the banks]. Mr. Balogun thanks LoneStar MTN for the partnership with UBA.
On behalf of the CBL, Madam Miatta O. Kuteh says for a strategy that is supposed to be implemented over a period of four years, there is already such innovation in just one year.
She gives credit to institutions that have the vision to push the agenda to ensure that the strategy is achieved at a very fast pace. Madam Kuteh says the Central Bank of Liberia is super excited to see the partnership between
LoneStar Cell MTN and the United Bank of Africa Liberia.She assures users of the Push and Pull service that their funds are secured, revealing that just as the CBL regulates the commercial banks, it also regulates the eco – system which involves MTN and other providers of this service.She urges MTN to engage stores, super markets and other businesses here to accept mobile money transactions so that customers can simply transfer money from their mobile money wallets to whoever they take goods from.
Mr. Prince Chesson, MTN Mobile Money Product and Strategy Manager expresses excitement on the lunch of the Push and Pull service with United Bank of Africa Liberia, saying MTN has again proven its dominance as the biggest and best mobile financial services operator in the country.
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]
For his part, Mr. Christopher Sali, Acting General Manager for Mobile Money says Push and Pull is a deposit and withdrawal service which customers can do remotely without having to go to the bank.“And for us as MTN, our commitment to the people of Liberia, our commitment to support the Central Bank in digitizing Liberia, there’s no reason why our customers, why UBA customers
still have to go to the bank when they have a LoneStar Cell fund,” he says.He explains that when users of the Push and Pull service are at home and there’s no electricity and all they need is LD$1,000, they can do the transaction right on their phone.The Push and Pull service allows customers of MTN and UBA to move any amount from their accounts without restriction as to how much can be withdrawn, and this can be done remotely without having to go to the bank to do withdrawal or deposit.By Winston W. Parley
