United Bank for Africa, MoMo PSB, and Redtech have announced a strategic payment interoperability partnership. The collaboration aims to dismantle the long-standing barriers between bank-led merchant acceptance and telco-led mobile money wallets, starting in Nigeria with immediate plans for a Pan-African rollout.
The partnership integrates MoMo PSB’s massive wallet ecosystem with UBA’s extensive merchant-acquiring network through Redtech’s RedPay infrastructure. This allows MoMo customers to pay at over 55,000 UBA merchant locations and perform branch-level transactions, including deposits and withdrawals.
Speaking at the signing ceremony in Lagos, UBA’s Group Head of Brands, Marketing and Corporate Communications, Alero Ladipo, underscored the broader vision of the alliance.
“Every institution in this room is a giant in its own right. What makes today meaningful is the decision to come together anyway,” Ladipo stated. “Financial inclusion is not a slogan to us at UBA. It is a commitment that requires scale, technology, and the willingness to build ecosystems rather than silos. This partnership is that commitment made concrete.”
Also speaking, UBA’s Head of Digital Banking, Kayode Olubiyi, highlighted how the integration solves critical friction points for both consumers and business owners.
He said, “What this partnership represents is an honest and effective answer to the gap we identified in cash transactions and card access,” Olubiyi explained.
“By bringing ‘Pay with MoMo’ into the UBA network, we are giving merchants a direct connection to MoMo PSB’s customer base, and giving MoMo PSB customers more places to use their wallets. That is a clear win for both sides,” he added.
For MoMo PSB, the fintech subsidiary of MTN Nigeria, the deal represents a leap toward “true interoperability”. The Acting CEO of MoMo PSB, Omolara Michael-Nwadu, emphasised the importance of removing platform-specific barriers to drive usage at scale.
She said, “We are building a more connected financial ecosystem where payments aren’t tied to platforms but to a seamless customer experience.
“Integrating MoMo wallets into UBA’s merchant network through Redtech’s infrastructure unlocks access to over 55,000 touchpoints, bringing useful financial services closer to where people live and work.”
The CEO of Redtech, Emmanuel Ojo, the Heirs Holdings-backed technology firm powering the integration, noted that the project aligns with the principles of Africapitalism.
He said, “This partnership is about making payments work more seamlessly for everyday commerce.
“Our goal is to build the payment infrastructure that ensures a merchant never has to turn away any customer in Nigeria or across Africa because of their preferred payment method.”
The “Pay with MoMo” feature is already live across RedPay POS terminals, which have processed over N278.47bn in transactions to date. Following the Nigerian rollout, the partners intend to extend the service to other African markets where both UBA and MoMo PSB maintain a presence, signalling a new era of cross-border payment fluidity on the continent.
