Bharti Airtel and United Bank of Africa (UBA) have announced a partnership to expand the range of mobile money offerings available to customers across 12 African countries.

Airtel and UBA announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed, under which the partners will launch new mobile financial products and services including international money transfer services, mobile banking, super agency services, payment cards, as well as cardless withdrawal services at ATMs, mobile savings and loans.

The new offerings - which will be offered under the Airtel Money brand - will be launched across the 12 African countries in which both partners are operative; namely, Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Gabon, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Chad and Zambia, Congo Brazzaville and Congo DRC.

The partners said the new services will enhance the convenience of their combined customer base of over 30 million registered customers, and that the services are intended to boost intra-African trade and commerce.

"We have chosen to partner UBA in providing this service across Africa because of its pan-Africa spread, leadership in innovation and Retail Banking, and shared presence in 12 African countries. We are confident that this partnership will fast track our aspiration to deepen access to financial services, create cash-lite ecosystems and reduce cost of transactions across Africa," said Chidi Okpala, director and Africa head at Airtel Money.

UBA highlighted the new services will support efforts to improve financial inclusion across Africa.

"We are very excited about this partnership with Airtel that will see the introduction of innovative solutions in the e-commerce space in Africa. The rich bouquet of mobile-based services which we will be introducing under the partnership will not only support financial inclusion across Africa, it will also improve trade and break barriers of doing business on the continent," said Kennedy Uzoka, group chief executive officer (CEO) at UBA Africa.

"As Africa's global bank, we are proud to be at the forefront of using a mobile based platform to provide ubiquitous financial services to resolve some of Africa's challenges," Uzoka said.