Etisalat Group, which provides telecoms services in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, is rolling out its mCommerce service, Flous, in Benin, through its subsidiary Etisalat Moov.

Flous, which is Moroccan for money and is known as Flooz in Benin, enables customers to use their mobile phone as a digital wallet to pay for goods and services, transfer money to friends and family, withdraw and deposit cash, top up mobile phones and manage bank accounts.

Customers can also use their mobile phones as debit cards and manage funds directly from their handsets. The service, offered in partnership with Banque Atlantique du Bénin, is designed to be secure and flexible – requiring a password for each transaction – and gives customers instant access to money around the clock. The service is available on both smartphones and feature phones.

“As Flous comes online throughout our international operations, millions of our customers can benefit from world-class financial services, many for the first time,” said Khalifa Al Shamsi, chief digital services officer at Etisalat Group. “By bringing banking to the unbanked, we are investing in communities and giving them the tools to flourish and thrive. This is especially relevant for Benin as the market for financial services has yet to fully mature. So it will be exciting to see the impact on society when this innovative new product takes off.”

Earlier this year, Flous was presented with the Best Mobile Money Product award at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Earlier this year, the service also received a special commendation from the Financial Times and the World Bank for the 2013 Global Sustainable Finance award in the Technology in Sustainable Finance category.

Etisalat currently serves 144m customers in 15 countries throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia.