Mobile money: make money transfers through your phone!

You need to send money to your family abroad but you are lost among the several options? Put an end to your doubts with mobile money and discover a whole new world! Never heard about mobile money? No problem, find all you need to understand it in this article!

With mobile money, you’ll enter in a completely parallel universe. Basically, mobile money works as every monetary system, but this one is much more inclusive!

For lots of people in the entire world and especially in Asia, Africa or South America, the banking system is inaccessible. They can’t open an account, receive and send money except with cash. Thanks to mobile money, this people have access to a monetary system equally. With mobile money, you can do exactly the same operations than with classic money. And guess what? It’s easier and faster.

You’re probably wondering why. Well, mobile money is a way to receive, keep and spend your money through your mobile phone. Your bank account or “mobile wallet” is your phone. This monetary service is held and managed by your network operator. In the world, there are more than 260 mobile money services: Mpesa, AirtelMoney, Tigo Pesa, GCash, NTM, Azimo….

In other words, you can transfer your mobile money via mobile number: your bank account number is your mobile money contact number.

Why shouldn’t you still use your traditional bank if you don’t have any problem with your account? Because mobile money is a great alternative to your banking operations. Transferring money has never been so simple and so quick. Waiting for 3-days operations with several confirmations to send a gift to your family in Uganda or in Kenya is over. Thanks to mobile money, this will take 30 seconds and just some clicks.

You are probably wondering what trick this is now… Well, let’s see how mobile money works to clear all your doubts!

The big question is: how it works? Contrary to traditional banking system, mobile money relies entirely on your network operator. Your mobile money wallet is your mobile phone and the service which ensures your mobile money transfer is your operator. The operation will pass through the network of your operator using encrypted data. It’s completely safe.

But how does it concretely work? Here is the simple process you’ll have to follow if you want to transfer mobile money:

Once this operation over, you won’t have anything to do. However, if you want everything to be okay, you also have to be certain that the mobile money transfer is respecting these conditions:

One of the keys of mobile money system is the PIN code. It’s quite fundamental for mobile money and every operator are using this way to secure your mobile money transfer or your withdrawals.

Now, you are probably wondering how you can withdraw cash from your mobile wallet… Well, it’s also very simple: to do that, you’ll have to go to a store or a retailer that is accredited by your operator. You can do you mobile money transfer into a post office. It can be a store from Airtel, Mpesa, Orange, Taptap, etc… Or just a retailer. Proceed to the operation with your intermediary and give him the mobile money transfer code from your operator that you’ve received.

Here, we’ll present the different actors that you can find to open a mobile money wallet and begin your operations. Each actor is present in specific countries, that’s why it’s important to know the locations where you are going to use your mobile money before choosing your mobile money operator!

Bharti Airtel is a huge network company based in India. Airtel is providing mobile phones, TV network, broadband and Airtel money across more than 18 countries! It’s the second largest mobile network in India.

Mpesa was created in 2007 by Vodafone. As you might know, Vodafone is owning Vodacom and Safaricom, the two biggest mobile network operator in Kenya and Tanzania. Mpesa is the mobile money attached to Vodafone.

MTN is a South-African network operator, present in many African countries such as Nigeria, where it’s one of the biggest actors on the market. With MoMo, its mobile money service, you can withdraw cash and pay goods and services in many African countries.

Azimo is a money transfer service, like Monisnap. It has launched its mobile money service and you can know get your mobile wallet. With it, you can send money quickly to mobile wallets in many countries.

As we said, all these actors are present in specific countries. Mobile money is particularly used in Africa, Asia, South America and Eastern Europe, but you’ll find retailers almost everywhere in the world.  You can send mobile money to any country, but you’ll need to verify mobile money actors present in the country.

For example, if you want to make a mobile money transfer to Kenya, you’ll just need to check that your recipient’s mobile money is available in the country. There are lots of countries where you can send mobile money, but it depends on your own situation and the recipient’s location!

Mpesa is present in these countries of Africa:

Airtel money is present in these countries:

Taptap money is present in these countries:

MTN money is present in these countries:

Depending on your country, you can have different rates! Rates also depends on your operation: whether you want to withdraw cash from your mobile money wallet or just send mobile money to someone, charges are different. Here is a panel of important rates according to operators.

For Airtel India, here is the list of withdrawal limits:

You can also see domestic transaction rates on Airtel India’s website or go to Airtel Uganda in order to have a look on Airtel mobile money charges Uganda.

Here is the list for Mpesa Kenya withdrawal rates:

You can also check rates on Mpesa’s website.

You’ll find MTN Uganda’s detailed list for mobile money charges on this screen from MTN website. Everything is described:

You’ll also have information about specific countries such as MTN mobile money Ghana directly on their website. They are also available if you download MTN mobile money adder app.

If you need to check the rates for Azimo, as it is a money transfer agent, you’ll get precise information on their website. Tariffs relies on where you are sending money to and from, and which method you send with.

You can also check on Monisnap to discover the lowest rates in most cases!

Here is how to reach different customer services.

To call Airtel international customer care and get an appreciated answer to your question, try the following number : +91-1800-103-4444

The current wait is around 14min.

You can also reach Airtel Customer Care Center from any country on internet, and process to a phone call or explain your problem through the web service.

If you still have a question, have a look on Airtel FAQs available in all countries where Airtel is present.

For Mpesa’s customer support, call 234 or 200/100 if you want to reverse a wrong transaction. It will be done if the money sent is still available on the recipient Mpesa wallet. Confirm the reversal by sending the message to 456. You will receive an SMS if the operation is successful.

If you aren’t an Mpesa customer, you can call KCB Contact Centre on (020) 3287000 / 0711087000 or PesaPal Customer service on 020 212 4722.

MTN customer care is easy to join! Call 135 or send an email to [email protected]. You can also use the contact form. If you are not a MTN user, call 083 135.

Azimo’s customer care is difficult to join. Try to call 0203 137 0708 or click on “email Azimo” on their website contact page.

If you are not convinced by all these mobile money solutions, try Monisnap. With Monisnap, send your mobile money to everywhere in the world at the lowest fees! And for the sceptical ones, all the details of our fees are explained: quick, fair and easy, that’s Monisnap.

To send money, just do like this:

Nice, isn’t it?