Vodafone has responded to the reports that are presently spreading about the suspension of “Vodafone Cash” accounts and the freezing of their balances by sending brief SMS messages to all users of the e-wallet service.

“Vodafone Cash customer, Vodafone Cash services function frequently, and the service is provided to all of our customers quickly and safely,” Vodafone stated in a succinct statement to its consumers.

“The reports that e-wallets would no longer be accepted in the Egyptian market are untrue. Thank you for your trust,” the company added. 

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Following the “HoggPool” platform crisis, which involved the seizure of sizable funds from Egyptians under the guise of investing them in mining encrypted virtual currencies and luring them with a huge return on this investment, rumours have recently circulated about the closure of Vodafone Cash accounts and the confiscation of customer funds.

Moreover, rumours connected the movement of funds to and from “HoggPool” and its clients using mobile phone wallets, the largest of which being Vodafone Cash in Egypt. These rumours also supported the Public Prosecution’s decision to suspend Vodafone Cash accounts and freeze their balances.

When contacted, representatives from Vodafone, the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, and the Central Bank of Egypt — the organisations responsible for running mobile financial services — debunked any widespread decision to halt Vodafone Cash wallets.

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According to sources, only a small number of accounts — several hundred at most — belonging to subscribers in the mobile phone wallets of the four companies operating in Egypt are under suspension until the Public Prosecution has finished its investigations into their possible connections to the “HoggPool” case. Also, the accounts will resume functioning after the investigations are complete.

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Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. 
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard