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South African telecoms operator MTN has pulled the plug on its local mobile money business.

It says it’s not viable in a country where around three-quarters of the population have bank accounts.The company is the second mobile company to do so this year. MTN South Africa announced Sept. 15 that it was decommissioning the product “due to a lack of commercial viability.”

The announcement illustrates the difficulty of cracking the financial services market in South Africa via mobile payments services. Unlike most of Africa, South Africa has a well-established and competitive banking sector.

Here’s Angelo Coppola with the story.