Splash milestone marks hot Sierra Leone mobile money arena

The growth of Splash Mobile Money, with more than 50,000 subscribers and 150 outlets nationwide as it marked its first anniversary in Sierra Leone, has put the spotlight on the fast expansion of the mobile money arena in the country as competition leads to new services.

Founded in September last year as a service allowing users to send money to other mobile phone users, Splash Mobile Money said last week that it has achieved its first objective -- to be established as a viable and trustworthy money transfer institution in Sierra Leone even though there were enormous challenges within their first three months of implementing the pilot phase.

The Splash business in Sierra Leone is based on the SplashMoney platform-neutral service accessible to customers of three major telcos -- Africell, Comium and Zain -- with a total of more than a million users in Africa.

The mobile money transfer service has enabled an estimated 80 percent of Sierra Leoneans with mobile phones to experience formal business transactions, noted the country Managing Director Michael P. Foley.

Aside from introducing the new Splash Mobile Money Shopping, which gives users the convenience of supermarket shopping with their mobile phones, the company has also recently entered an agreement with cable TV operators such as MedoSat to provide facilities for customers to pay monthly subscription rates.

On the other hand, Zain SL which also provides mobile money transfer called ZAP, recently introduced incentives such as price reductions for every two gallons of fuel bought at selected petrol stations nationwide when ZAP is used for payment.

Zap is providing plenty of competition for Splash. Zap passed the 50,000-user mark in April, even thought it launched its service in January, four months after Splash.