(Business in Cameroon) - UBA Cameroon, the local branch of the Nigerian United Bank for Africa (UBA), announced the upcoming launch of its Mobile Money service, M2U Money.

“Sending or withdrawing money using M2U Money won’t cost any extra fee. The only fee that will be applied is the 0.2% tax on money transfers imposed by the Cameroonian government. That means our service is free,” the bank said, stressing that “M2U Money also provides an e-commerce space, where suppliers and buyers of goods and services can meet, in a friendly manner, in a fully secure virtual world.”

M2U Money users can send and receive money directly into their accounts, whether it is a UBA account or not. The service will allow anybody, whether they have a bank account or not and, both in rural and urban areas, to perform different types of financial transactions via a mobile phone. These include money transfers; merchant payments; bill payments; savings and receiving remittances. "Transactions between M2U Money and a bank account are free of charge. Users can transfer money directly from their M2U Money account to several other Orange, MTN, or Nexttel accounts," UBA explained.

UBA Cameroon is entering the mobile money segment after an unfruitful partnership with the mobile operator Nexttel. Indeed, about four years ago, the two companies worked on a mobile money service called "Nexttel Possa" (meaning Nexttel's wallet in a local language). They even obtained approval from the Bank of Central African States (Beac) on March 12, 2018, whereby the central bank gave them six months to finalize the service and launch it. The telecom operator did not comply with this requirement and Beac finally canceled its authorization.

S.A.