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ollowing the recent grant of licenses
to mobile money service provid-
ers by the CBN, United Bank for Af-
rica (UBA) Plc in conjunction with its
associate company; Afripay Limited,
recently blazed the trail by being the
first of the 11 licensees to roll out com-
mercially. Indeed, Nigeria’s first mobile
money service; U-Mo was launched in
Lagos on Thursday November 24, 2011.
Customers of UBA Plc, Africa’s global
bank, are now empowered to make
card-less withdrawals from the bank’s
Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) us-
ing the U-Mo mobile money service
that enables individuals transfer money
with the creation of an electronic wallet,
even without having a bank account.
U-Mo mobile money is phone-only ac-
count that is designed to promote sav-
ings and Cashlite services to over 90
million mobile subscribers. It offers ca-
pability of subscribers to spend cashless
by buying airtime for self and for oth-
ers, paying bills, paying for goods and
service in shops and on internet as well
as send money and receive money via
a mobile phone. U-Mo mobile money so-
lution is very versatile and does not ex-
clude any customer irrespective of the
type of phone or service provider/carrier.
This service, which has been deployed
to UBA ATMs nationwide, enables indi-
viduals make a minimum withdrawal
of N1,000.00 while maximum amount is
N20,000.00. Also, customers can operate
cashless transactions ( in line with CBN
Cashlite policy) including opening of ac-
counts easily on mobile phones; using
their mobile number as account number.
Group Managing Director/CEO, Mr. Phil-
lips Oduoza described the launch of U-Mo
as a major step towards realizing the ob-
jectives of the ‘Cash lite’ policy of the CBN.
According to him, “this product is the first in
the banking industry in line with the CBN
policy and it is going to be a revolution
in the banking industry.” “This product is
very unique because it requires minimal
documentation. Almost everything you
want to buy that is of low value you can
do with U-Mo, it is good for low value but
high volume transactions,” he added.
Dr. Yinka Adedeji, Chief Executive Of-
ficer, UBA/Afripay, the company re-
sponsible for implementing the mobile
money arm of the bank said the prod-
uct targeted mainly on the unbanked
and semi-banked population would
provide the masses affordable bank-
ing services with embedded security
features to ensure that users of the prod-
uct do not experience loss of money.
Adedeji said that U-Mo would offer vari-
ous categories of customers including the
banked and un-banked. ‘We will also
provide various levels of transactions
limits. The product could be assessed in
three different categories including U-Mo
Silver, U-Mo Gold and U-Mo Platinum.
U-Mo Silver is offered for customers with
very little information and it allows them
U-Mo
First Mobile Payment
Service to
over 90m
Mobile Phone
Users
F