South Sudan government has launched a mobile money platform in an attempt to reduce the country’s reliance on physical cash.

Ladu Wani Kenyi, the director general of the National Communications Authority (NCA), told reporters in Juba on Friday that they had granted a license to Trinity Technologies Company to provide electronic and mobile money services in South Sudan.

“This process has come to an end and NCA has granted Trinity Technologies the license,” Kenyi said.

The government official emphasized the importance of the mobile money platform in the country, saying the new service would reduce the need for citizens to carry cash.

“The aim is that people in the towns are not going to carry cash, they would carry their telephones to store their money,” he said.

The regulator pointed out that any local unlicensed mobile money platforms will be shut down once Trinity Technologies alongside another company start operations.

“As you know in South Sudan especially in Juba, you would see there are a lot of shops having mobile money services, so all those shops are illegal,” Kenyi said.

“We believe that with this launching and granting of the license to Trinity Technologies, we hope that the financial system in the country will really improve,” he added.

Richard Raja, director of Trinity Technologies, said the new mobile money transfer project would open its offices across the country. 

“We have a challenge of infrastructure in our country. The only infrastructure we have is the telecom network across the country,” he said.