The collaboration will combine FIS’s payments and card-issuing capabilities with Ericsson’s existing Fintech Platform, which provides cloud-based wallet infrastructure and open APIs. In practical terms, the idea is to bring together several of the systems normally required to build a digital financial service, including payments, banking connections, ledgering, identity and compliance, rather than expecting companies to integrate each of them separately.

That integration work is often one of the less visible parts of launching a financial product. Building an app with a digital wallet is one thing. Making sure money can actually move between accounts, keeping an accurate record of those transactions, verifying customers and complying with financial regulations involves quite a few more moving parts.

FIS CEO and president Stephanie Ferris says fragmented infrastructure is one of the reasons companies can take so long to bring these products to market.

“Organizations want to bring wallet-led financial services to market faster, but too often they are slowed by fragmented infrastructure and complex integrations,” she says. “By working with Ericsson, FIS wants to remove that friction with trusted capabilities that come connected across the money lifecycle, giving clients a faster, simpler path from idea to deployment.”

The planned platform isn’t aimed only at banks or traditional fintech companies either. Ericsson and FIS say telecom operators, retailers, healthcare companies and government organisations could all use it to build financial services of their own.

That’s hardly a strange list anymore. Mobile operators have spent years moving beyond airtime and data into payments and financial services, particularly in Africa. Ericsson’s existing fintech business already puts it behind some of those services, while operators themselves increasingly see financial services as another part of what can be built on top of their networks.

MTN’s recent results, for example, show how much more ambitious that relationship has become. Mobile money is no longer simply an additional service sitting beside connectivity. For large African operators it is becoming an increasingly important business in its own right, spanning payments, remittances, merchant services and other financial products.

There’s a similar push happening elsewhere in African payments, where the problem increasingly isn’t whether people want digital payment services, but how easily the various pieces of the system can talk to each other. The recent Yuno and Onafriq partnership, for example, is partly about making it easier for businesses to connect to payment methods across several African markets without dealing with every integration individually.

Quite a lot of money already moves through Ericsson’s platform

Ericsson isn’t starting from scratch here. Its Fintech Platform has been operating for more than 15 years and the company says at least 131 million people used it to make transactions during the past 90 days. Around $80 billion currently moves through the platform every month. That gives some idea of the scale of the infrastructure FIS is plugging into.

Under the proposed arrangement, FIS would add its payments and issuing technology to that existing wallet system. The companies haven’t announced individual customers for the combined platform yet, and the language in the announcement is still deliberately forward-looking. They describe it as an “envisaged partnership platform”, so this isn’t a finished service suddenly becoming available to businesses this week.

Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm says fintech has become a growth area for the company as telecommunications and financial services become increasingly intertwined.

“As money and value exchange become increasingly digital, Ericsson’s fintech offerings provide communication service providers, enterprises and broader segments with the confidence to innovate and scale,” he says.

There is, admittedly, something slightly odd about thinking of Ericsson as a fintech company. Most people still associate the name with mobile networks, radio equipment and the infrastructure sitting behind their cellphone connection. But that network business already puts Ericsson fairly close to the operators that run some of the world’s largest mobile-money platforms. Adding more of the financial infrastructure around those services is therefore not quite the sideways move it might first appear to be.

For companies wanting to launch a wallet, payment service or some other financial product, the appeal is simpler. They would still need to decide what service they actually want to offer, deal with the relevant regulations and persuade people to use it. Ericsson and FIS are trying to reduce how much of the technology underneath that service they need to assemble themselves.

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MTN has already made that change part of its Ambition 2030 strategy. The company now organises its ambitions around connectivity, fintech and digital infrastructure, describing itself in its interim presentation as an African digital services provider with the customers, infrastructure and coverage to pursue all three. Connectivity still gives MTN the relationship with the customer, but the company increasingly wants to make money from the activity that follows and from more of the infrastructure carrying it.

There’s a different kind of telecoms company taking shape inside those results. Whether MTN can actually build it depends on markets that are developing at very different speeds, regulators who may not share its enthusiasm for consolidation and African consumers having enough money to participate in the digital growth its strategy assumes.

Data is carrying most of the growth

Nigeria shows how quickly the economics of a mobile network can change when data use rises. MTN Nigeria added 7.5 million subscribers during the half and ended June with 92.2 million, while data traffic increased 25.8% and active data users rose 9.3%. Data revenue grew 38.2%, against 11.8% for voice, and service revenue increased 25.7%. MTN also invested R7.3 billion excluding leases in its Nigerian network during the period.

Ghana is further along that change. Data traffic rose 61.5%, active data users increased 17% and data accounted for 58.7% of service revenue, up from 52.8% a year earlier. Digital revenue grew 97.5%, while overall service revenue increased 32.3%.

MTN sees the remaining gaps in African connectivity as commercial headroom. Its presentation puts smartphone penetration in sub-Saharan Africa at 53%, says fewer than 25% of people have access to credit and cites estimates that Africa’s data-centre capacity could grow by between 3.5 and 5.5 times. A 53% smartphone penetration rate can be an investor’s growth opportunity and an affordability problem at the same time, though. The people who haven’t yet moved onto smartphones are unlikely to be distributed evenly across income groups, and getting the next wave online may be harder than selling more data to people who already own capable devices.

That problem is already visible in South Africa, where meaningful connectivity is still shaped by who can afford to get online and stay online as much as whether a network technically reaches them. Device costs, patchy service and the price of remaining connected mean that expanding infrastructure doesn’t automatically produce meaningful access. MTN appears conscious of the constraint. Chipset pricing and its effect on smartphone affordability are among the technology issues the company says it’s monitoring in the second half of 2026, alongside changes in satellite connectivity and AI models. Ambition 2030 needs African consumers to use substantially more digital services, but unmet demand doesn’t guarantee that those consumers will be able to pay for the devices and data needed to satisfy it.

MoMo is starting to resemble financial infrastructure

MoMo is already too large to treat as a useful extra attached to MTN’s mobile business. It had 70.8 million monthly active users at the end of the half, up 12.1%, and processed 13 billion transactions worth $330.5 billion. MTN also reported 1.4 million active agents and 2.3 million active merchants across the ecosystem.

The more revealing numbers are inside those transactions. MTN says advanced services grew 31.8%, compared with 10.7% for basic services, and accounted for 37.4% of MoMo revenue excluding airtime advances. Payments and e-commerce processed $12.7 billion in merchant payments, lending businesses facilitated $2.7 billion in loans and formal cross-border remittances exceeded $3 billion. MTN also has a virtual card operating in seven markets, with about 954,000 cards issued.

That mix explains why MTN’s fintech business matters to the wider strategy. Moving money between two mobile wallets is one service; processing merchant payments and facilitating credit puts MTN into parts of the financial system where banks, payment companies and fintech platforms are competing for the same activity. The recent connection between Yuno and Onafriq’s payment networks shows the same competition developing elsewhere, with value accumulating in the infrastructure connecting merchants, wallets and financial institutions across markets. MTN is approaching the same territory with an unusual advantage: the telecommunications relationship through which tens of millions of people already access digital services.

That advantage doesn’t make fintech growth automatic. Revenue increased 13.3% in constant currency during the half, well below MTN’s medium-term target of high-20% to low-30% growth, while regulatory measures and the suspension of airtime advance and data-credit products in Nigeria weighed on performance. The regulatory exposure grows with the business too. Selling mobile data depends heavily on telecoms regulation; facilitating lending and moving large amounts of money across borders introduces financial rules that differ from country to country. A larger MoMo can be more valuable to MTN while becoming more difficult to run.

The IHS deal puts real money behind the infrastructure plan

MTN’s proposed acquisition of IHS Towers makes the digital-infrastructure part of Ambition 2030 considerably harder to treat as a line in an investor presentation. The company expects the transaction to close in the second half of 2026, subject to the remaining approvals, and says the deal would increase group net debt-to-EBITDA from 0.3x to 0.8x. The ratio would remain below MTN’s medium-term ceiling of 1.0x, but the change shows how much balance-sheet capacity it’s prepared to commit to the acquisition.

Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has already placed a condition on the deal, requiring MTN to sell down as much as 30% of the Nigerian component of IHS over time. MTN says it’s comfortable with the condition. The requirement is an early indication of the questions MTN will face as it expands beyond operating telecoms networks and takes greater ownership interests in infrastructure used by the industry.

Owning more infrastructure can give MTN greater exposure to the growth it expects in African data use without requiring every rand of growth to come directly from an MTN mobile subscriber. It can also create an uncomfortable relationship with competitors that may depend on infrastructure in which MTN has a much larger economic interest. The IHS transaction therefore does more than add another business to the group; it tests how far MTN can integrate infrastructure into its strategy before regulators decide the advantages of integration have become a competition problem.

South Africa has already had to deal with similar questions around who controls telecoms infrastructure used by other providers. The Vuma-Herotel merger and the regulatory scrutiny around it involved a different market and a much smaller geographic footprint, but it also forced regulators to consider what consolidation changes when infrastructure ownership and access become concentrated. MTN and IHS operate at a different scale, which makes those questions harder to ignore.

South Africa is where the growth thesis looks least automatic

MTN’s home market is a reminder that the trajectory isn’t uniform across the continent. South African service revenue increased only 1.5% during the half, with postpaid up 4.9%, data up 4% and wholesale up 13.7%. Prepaid service revenue fell 3.3%, which MTN attributes mainly to its airtime-advance reset and continued substitution away from voice.

There are signs of improvement. Prepaid data revenue grew 4.4% during the half and accelerated from 3.8% in the first quarter to 5% in the second, while airtime-advance repayment rates improved from about 50% in October 2025 to roughly 70%. MTN has made the South African prepaid recovery one of its priorities for the second half of the year. The comparison with Nigeria and Ghana is still stark, though. MTN is operating in South Africa’s mature mobile market against intense competition, with less room to add first-time mobile users and consumers whose spending remains constrained. In other markets, subscriber bases are still expanding quickly while data consumption and mobile financial services are growing from a less mature starting point.

Ambition 2030 therefore depends on Africa being many different technology markets at once. What works in Nigeria may not produce the same growth in South Africa, while the opportunity for MoMo will depend heavily on the banking and regulatory conditions in each country. MTN’s scale gives it room to absorb those differences, but it also makes the strategy harder than simply rolling the same model across a map.

MTN says Ambition 2030 has moved “from articulation to execution”, and its H1 results provide the first useful evidence of what that execution could mean. If the company gets what it wants, the more difficult question by 2030 may not be whether MTN still qualifies as a telecoms operator. Regulators and competitors could instead be dealing with a company that remains one of Africa’s largest mobile networks while occupying a much larger position in the financial and physical systems built around that connectivity.

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In a recent sit-down, Lahlou Kassi walked through Ericsson’s current positioning across the continent, covering 5G deployment timelines, sustainability commitments that go beyond press release greenwashing, and the company’s attempts to shift from infrastructure vendor to something resembling an ecosystem partner. The conversation touched on youth training programs, innovation hubs, public-private policy alignment, and the commercial realities that still determine where networks get built and when.

The empowerment framing isn’t new, but Lahlou Kassi grounds it in tangible examples. Ericsson’s extended partnership with MTN on Mobile Money is expanding digital payments, savings, loans, and insurance to millions who’ve been locked out of formal financial systems. She references meeting young African entrepreneurs who said connectivity didn’t just open market access, it shifted their confidence to build and scale ideas. That human-level detail matters, even if it sits alongside corporate objectives that benefit from expanded network usage and data consumption.

5G rollout follows commercial logic, not developmental rhetoric

On 5G, Lahlou Kassi’s realistic about where deployment makes sense first. High-density urban centres, innovation hubs, and industrial verticals like mining, ports, and logistics get priority because that’s where demand and ROI align. According to Ericsson’s own mobility data, 5G subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa doubled from five million in 2023 to 11 million in 2024, with projections hitting 400 million by 2030. That’s aggressive growth, but it’s selective. The implication is that 5G spreads outward as commercial viability follows, which is pragmatic but less universalist than typical telecoms messaging suggests.

What’s notable is her acknowledgment that African operators aren’t waiting for global deployment blueprints. They’re designing 5G models around local affordability thresholds, energy constraints, and demand patterns. Ericsson’s role in that process remains primarily as equipment supplier, but the framing suggests the company’s positioning for a future where African innovation drives its own trajectory rather than importing solutions designed elsewhere.

Sustainability backed by actual hardware, not just commitments

The sustainability conversation has more technical substance than usual corporate climate talk. Ericsson’s 6626 Radio consolidates three sectors and multiple bands into one unit, reportedly cutting site-level energy consumption by up to 50 percent. That matters when operators are expanding coverage without wanting energy costs to scale proportionally. In Benin, Ericsson and MTN deployed fully solar-powered rural sites that eliminate diesel dependency, complemented by lithium-ion batteries for consistent off-grid service delivery.

These aren’t pilot projects staged for sustainability reports. They’re commercially deployed infrastructure solving real operational problems in markets where grid electricity is unreliable or prohibitively expensive. Lahlou Kassi notes that many African operators now place energy KPIs and sustainability targets at the centre of network planning, driven as much by cost considerations as by customer and regulatory expectations.

‘Africa First’ tested by where R&D actually happens

The “Africa First” positioning gets more concrete when Lahlou Kassi discusses what’s being built locally. Ericsson’s opened an R&D centre in Cairo focused on AI and cloud software, and there’s a technology hub and 5G Innovation Lab coming to Nigeria to give local developers and startups real network environments for testing. The AIR 3284 triple-band radios being deployed with MTN Nigeria were reportedly designed with African network realities in mind.

Still, “designed for Africa” often translates to “optimised for cost and harsh conditions” rather than “developed on the continent by African engineers.” There’s a meaningful difference between localising solutions and genuinely decentralising R&D capacity. Ericsson’s Graduate Program pulls young talent into hands-on training and long-term career tracks, creating direct employment pathways rather than just upskilling people and hoping markets absorb them. The company’s also working with the Wot-if? Trust in Diepsloot, introducing 11 to 14-year-olds to programming and digital technologies as early-stage pipeline development.

Whether these initiatives translate into substantive shifts in where innovation happens, or remain capacity-building exercises that feed into global corporate structures, is the question that “Africa First” rhetoric doesn’t quite resolve.

Policy alignment matters as much as infrastructure deployment

Lahlou Kassi’s more forthcoming than most on the importance of public-private partnerships in shaping rollout timelines. Ericsson’s working with the African Telecommunications Union on spectrum recommendations that make 4G and 5G deployment easier and more affordable. Through the Smart Africa Digital Academy, the company’s sharing technical knowledge with policymakers and regulators so frameworks can keep pace with AI, IoT, and next-gen connectivity demands.

That’s pragmatic. Policy lag genuinely constrains deployment speed, and operators benefit when governments understand what they’re trying to build. Some markets are moving quickly with broadband plans and regulatory reforms, others less so, but Lahlou Kassi frames the overall trajectory as positive. The policy decisions being made now will determine how quickly Africa can unlock AI, cloud services, and digital public infrastructure at scale.

Ecosystem enabler or infrastructure vendor with better messaging?

The longer-term pitch is about Ericsson shifting from infrastructure provider to ecosystem enabler. The Nigeria 5G Innovation Lab is meant to give startups, developers, and universities access to real 5G environments, moving concepts toward commercialisation. Mobile Money APIs are being opened up so developers can build fintech products that plug directly into operator platforms. Lahlou Kassi talks about moving from “a company that connects Africa to the world” to “a partner that helps Africa create for the world.”

That’s aspirational, and the R&D centres, innovation labs, and developer support programs suggest directional movement. But the underlying economics haven’t fundamentally shifted. Ericsson remains a supplier selling equipment and services to operators, who deploy them based on commercial returns. Profitability calculations, not developmental priorities still shape connectivity rollout, and that structural reality persists regardless of how well-designed the sustainability commitments or innovation partnerships are.

Lahlou Kassi’s presentation is more substantive than typical corporate positioning. She’s citing deployment numbers, named partnerships, concrete energy efficiency metrics, and acknowledging that 5G won’t arrive everywhere simultaneously. That’s unusual in an industry where transformation language tends to float free of measurable commitments. But the gap between empowerment narrative and infrastructure economics remains visible, even when the initiatives themselves, solar-powered Benin sites, Cairo R&D centres, youth training programs, represent genuine investments in Africa’s digital capacity rather than just margin extraction on equipment sales.

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FTTR takes fibre beyond the front door and into every room, supporting consistent high-speed Wi-Fi, smart-home features, and value-added services that operators can bundle into simple, managed offerings. The approach aligns with what households and SMEs increasingly expect: strong, reliable Wi-Fi throughout their space and digital tools that make day-to-day life easier.

Room-by-room fibre for reliable coverage

Huawei’s FTTR architecture uses transparent fibre routed along walls and into individual rooms, ending in slim access points that deliver stable Wi-Fi where people work, stream, and play. Because the fibre is nearly invisible once installed, operators can extend dense, room-by-room connectivity without affecting the look and feel of homes or business premises.

This layout enables operators to offer true whole-home fibre Wi-Fi packages. With in-room access points, performance stays consistent across bedrooms, studies, and shared living areas. The network easily supports many devices at once — from remote work setups to gaming and streaming — and creates a ready foundation for future smart-home services such as sensing and automation.

A home network customers can manage easily

A key part of Huawei’s FTTR offering is an app that gives households a live view of their home network. Instead of navigating complex router interfaces, users can enable guest Wi-Fi with one tap, view and manage connected devices, and update Wi-Fi names and passwords quickly.

If the connection feels slow, users can run an instant health check before contacting support. Wi-Fi sensing capabilities also allow the system to detect movement patterns by analysing small changes in wireless signals, laying the groundwork for new security and smart-home applications.

Helping operators manage dense fibre networks

FTTR relies on dense fibre deployments in buildings and neighbourhoods — infrastructure that can be difficult to track and maintain. To support operators, Huawei demonstrated a GIS-enabled fibre management platform that provides clearer visibility and control.

Technicians can scan QR codes on passive boxes to capture GPS locations, photos, and port information. This data feeds into a centralised map showing which fibre cores are in use and which remain available. AI-assisted tools can also estimate where along a route a fibre cut has occurred, guiding technicians directly to the problem area and reducing fault-finding time and unnecessary truck rolls.

“Travel-free” diagnostics for quicker support

To cut down on on-site visits, Huawei has built a self-diagnostic “travel-free” feature into its FTTR solution. When a home network underperforms, the customer scans a QR code on the device to launch a guided diagnostic that checks the Wi-Fi environment and access status.

Simple issues are resolved automatically in the background. For more complex cases, the diagnostic creates a detailed report that can be shared with the operator’s support team, giving call-centre agents a clearer starting point and speeding up resolution.

Turning FTTR into an SME service platform

For small businesses, Huawei showcased an all-in-one FTTR-based device that blends connectivity with local digital services. Operators can offer high-speed fibre broadband and in-store Wi-Fi, along with on-premise photo and video storage that stays within the business rather than the public cloud.

The solution supports user permissions and separation of personal and shared content, making collaboration easier while protecting private material. Basic attendance and workforce-tracking tools can be added, with a roadmap for integrating point-of-sale and other business applications through partner ecosystems.

For cafés, salons, and small retailers, this creates a single monthly service covering connectivity and essential digital tools — without the complexity of managing multiple vendors.

FTTR as the foundation for the next wave of broadband value

Huawei’s showcase positions FTTR as both an infrastructure upgrade and a product-design opportunity. By enabling whole-home Wi-Fi, smarter network operations, and new SME service bundles on one platform, FTTR opens the door to the next phase of broadband value for operators across Africa.

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AfricaCom, part of the broader Africa Tech Festival, is expected to draw more than 15 000 visitors and 500 exhibitors from over 100 countries. The event provides a key opportunity for international and African stakeholders to connect around infrastructure, connectivity, and digital services shaping the continent’s tech landscape.

South Africa remains a focal point for telecom growth. The country now has 98 percent 4G coverage and continues to expand 5G networks rapidly. With 69 operational data centres and nine submarine cables, South Africa has positioned itself as a leading connectivity hub for Sub-Saharan Africa. According to Business France, nearly €1.47 billion in telecom investment was recorded in 2024, reflecting strong confidence in the market’s potential.

The French Pavilion will once again serve as a central platform for innovation. The delegation includes companies working across mobile connectivity, OTT services, video streaming, satellite networks, and data analytics. Among them are Enreach, Famoco, Spectronite, CapstonAI, ENENSYS, Speedcast, Adaltra, IT-Development, Kapptivate, and SmarDTV.

Each of these exhibitors brings distinct expertise: Enreach provides unified communication solutions for businesses, Famoco focuses on secure mobile payments, Spectronite develops software-defined radio technologies aimed at improving network capacity and reducing energy use, and CapstonAI applies predictive analytics to optimise industrial and telecom operations.

Over the three-day exhibition, the French Pavilion will host product demonstrations, B2B meetings, and networking opportunities, including the traditional French Cocktail. The showcase will also allow participants to engage directly with African mobile network operators, regulators, broadcasters, and infrastructure providers such as Teraco, Africa Data Centres, Vumatel, and Broadband Infraco.

Business France described AfricaCom 2025 as a strategic opportunity to build new partnerships that support Africa’s growing demand for reliable, high-performance digital infrastructure. The organisation emphasised that collaboration between African and French companies remains central to advancing connectivity, digital services, and sustainable technology deployment across the continent.

South Africa’s growing role as a data hub has been underscored by recent projects like Africa Data Centres’ expansion in Cape Town, reinforcing why global players continue to view the country as the entry point to the continent’s digital economy.

The full list of French exhibitors and event details are available on the official AfricaCom website.

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