Serigne Dioum’s MTN Fintech vision goes beyond mobile money 

From processing 18 loans per second to partnering with Ant International, MTN Group Fintech CEO Serigne Dioum, in this edition of Coffee With…, tells PHATHISANI MOYO how he plans to convert MTN’s 317 million telecom subscribers into a single, closed-loop financial ecosystem. 

In 2007, Serigne Dioum, now Chief Executive Officer of MTN Group Fintech, began his career in mobile payments. At the time, the premise was relatively straightforward: give people a reliable way to transfer money using a mobile phone. 

Nearly two decades later, he is trying to build something much bigger.

The Senegalese executive oversees  MTN Group Fintech, the entity behind MoMo, the telco’s digital financial services platform, with a vision to convert the telecom giant’s massive subscriber base into one of Africa’s largest integrated digital and financial ecosystems. 

Achieving that requires driving engagement beyond basic peer-to-peer transfers. Dioum wants users paying merchants, borrowing, saving, receiving cross-border remittances, purchasing daily services, and ultimately managing their digital lives entirely through MoMo. 

The scale of the opportunity is immense:  While MTN boasts over  317 million subscribers  across its broader telecom operations, MoMo currently counts  over 70 million monthly active users across 14 markets.

The strategic imperative for Dioum is bridging that gap by converting telecom subscribers into active financial services users. 

On Tuesday, TechCabal sat down with Dioum on the sidelines of the MTN Group Fintech Summit 2026 in Johannesburg—a gathering of regulators, commercial banks, tech providers, and fintech founders debating the continent’s financial future. 

For Dioum, two flagship markets anchor this growth strategy: Nigeria and South Africa. 

“If you…