Mastercard Inc is ready to invest $100 million in Airtel Africa’s mobile money operations valuing the business at $2.65 billion, the London-listed company said.
Mastercard will hold a minority stake in Airtel Mobile Commerce, in line with Airtel Africa’s plan to monetise the mobile money business by selling up to a 25% stake in the unit, the company said.
The deal is the second for Airtel Mobile Commerce (AMC) in recent weeks, as the parent company executes a strategy to offload minority stakes in the mobile money business as part of a broader asset review which also resulted in a deal with Helios Towers involving its mobile towers in Malawi and Madagascar.
CEO Raghunath Mandava said the Mastercard deal will help the pair “realise the full potential from the substantial opportunity to improve financial inclusion” across its operating countries.
Alongside the investment, the Airtel Group and Mastercard have extended commercial agreements and signed "a new commercial framework which will deepen their partnerships across numerous geographies", and across products, including card issuance, payment gateway, payment processing, merchant acceptance and remittance solutions, and others.