MTN Developer API
66
AI ReadinessAI-Aware (B)66/100
Official vendor OpenAPI document · agent-readyCommunicationsSms MessagingapiKey7 EndpointsREST
For Agents
Take MTN Mobile Money payments, send SMS to MTN subscribers, and look up customer or account data across MTN's African mobile network through one API.
Use for: I need to take an MTN Mobile Money payment from a customer, Check whether a Mobile Money payment request has completed, Send a transactional SMS to an MTN subscriber, Transfer funds to a recipient's MTN wallet
Not supported: Does not handle bank wire transfers, card payments, or roaming-data provisioning - use for MTN Mobile Money, carrier SMS, and customer lookups only.
MTN Group's developer API surfaces core mobile network capabilities - mobile money payments, messaging, customer profile lookups, and account balance - across MTN's African operating units. Fintech and consumer apps use it to take MTN Mobile Money payments, send transactional SMS to MTN subscribers, and verify customer details against the carrier of record. The seven-endpoint surface focuses on payment request, transfer, messaging send, customer lookup, and account balance read operations under a single API-key auth model.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the MTN Developer API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the MTN Developer API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
1
Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fmtn.com%2Fmtn" | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fmtn.com%2Fmtn" | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with MTN Developer API.
Initiate an MTN Mobile Money collection from a subscriber via POST /payments/request
Check the state of a payment using its referenceId via GET /payments/{referenceId}
Push funds out to a recipient wallet via POST /transfer
Send a transactional SMS to an MTN subscriber via POST /messages/send
Retrieve a sent message by id via GET /messages/{messageId}
Look up a customer profile by id via GET /customers/{customerId}
Read the merchant or agent account balance via GET /account/balance
Use Cases
Patterns agents use MTN Developer API for, with concrete tasks.
★ Accept MTN Mobile Money at Checkout
Merchants accepting payments in markets like Ghana, Uganda, Cameroon, and Côte d'Ivoire issue a collection request to the customer's MTN Mobile Money wallet. POST /payments/request returns a referenceId that the merchant polls with GET /payments/{referenceId} until settlement. The flow replaces card payments where Mobile Money penetration exceeds card issuance.
Call POST /payments/request with the customer's MSISDN and amount, then poll GET /payments/{referenceId} every few seconds until the status field reads SUCCESSFUL or FAILED.
Disbursement to Wallet Recipients
Gig platforms and microfinance products push earnings or loan disbursements to MTN Mobile Money wallets via POST /transfer. The same call structure handles agent commissions and refunds, removing the need for bank rails in markets where wallet penetration is higher than account ownership. Each transfer carries a referenceId for reconciliation.
Call POST /transfer with the recipient MSISDN and the disbursement amount, persist the returned referenceId, and reconcile against GET /payments/{referenceId} status.
Transactional SMS to MTN Subscribers
Apps confirming payments, deliveries, or appointments send transactional SMS through POST /messages/send routed natively across MTN's network. The /messages/{messageId} read confirms delivery state for reconciliation. Native carrier routing improves deliverability for MTN-numbered subscribers compared with international SMS aggregators.
Send POST /messages/send with the subscriber's MSISDN and message body, then audit deliveries via GET /messages/{messageId}.
Agent-Driven Mobile Money Reconciliation
An AI agent reconciles a day of Mobile Money settlements against the merchant's order ledger. Through Jentic the agent searches for 'check mobile money payment status', loads the schema, iterates GET /payments/{referenceId} for every order in the day, and flags mismatches. The merchant balance from GET /account/balance closes the loop on cash position.
Search Jentic for 'check mobile money payment status', call GET /payments/{referenceId} for each ledger row, and reconcile discrepancies against GET /account/balance.
Key Endpoints
7 endpoints — mtn group's developer api surfaces core mobile network capabilities - mobile money payments, messaging, customer profile lookups, and account balance - across mtn's african operating units.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
POST
/payments/request
Initiate a Mobile Money collection from a subscriber
GET
/payments/{referenceId}
Check payment status by referenceId
POST
/transfer
Send funds to a recipient wallet
POST
/messages/send
Send a transactional SMS
GET
/customers/{customerId}
Look up a customer profile
GET
/account/balance
Read merchant account balance
POST
/payments/request
Initiate a Mobile Money collection from a subscriber
GET
/payments/{referenceId}
Check payment status by referenceId
POST
/transfer
Send funds to a recipient wallet
POST
/messages/send
Send a transactional SMS
GET
/customers/{customerId}
Look up a customer profile
GET
/account/balance
Read merchant account balance
Jentic AI Readiness Score
This API is usable in Jentic One now. Its AI-readiness score against Jentic's framework shows where it stands today and where improvements would make it even easier for agents to use.
M
MTN Developer API
- AI-Aware (B)66/100
93
Foundational Compliance69
Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility45
AI-Readiness & Agent Experience94
Agent Usability50
Security100
AI DiscoverabilityPowered by JenticScoring Framework 1.0.0 | Scoring Engine 0.4.0
Show dimension breakdown
93
Foundational Compliance
Base layer of spec validity and structural soundness.
Grade: A+Signals: 4
99%
Lint Results
Aggregated quality score from linter diagnostics, weighted by severity.
100%
Resolution Completeness
Percentage of `$ref` references that resolve successfully.
100%
Specification Validity
Checks whether the API description parses successfully and conforms to its declared specification (e.g., OpenAPI).
75%
Structural Integrity
Structural correctness score based on schema issues using logarithmic dampening.
69
Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility
Clarity, completeness, and ingestion readiness for developers and tooling.
Grade: B+Signals: 4
0%
Example Density
How richly the API is illustrated with examples.
100%
Example Validity
Percentage of examples that conform to their schemas.
75%
Response Coverage
Percentage of operations with complete response definitions (success, client error, server error).
100%
Tooling Readiness
Health of API ingestion, bundling, and resolution within Jentic pipelines.
45
AI-Readiness & Agent Experience
Semantic breadth, depth, and agent comprehension for AI systems.
Grade: DSignals: 4
46%
Description Coverage
Coverage of descriptions across API elements.
0%
Error Standardization
Coverage of RFC 9457 Problem Details for error responses.
86%
OperationId Quality
Coverage, uniqueness, and casing consistency of operationIds for AI inference.
50%
Summary Coverage
Coverage of summaries across operations/tags/info.
94
Agent Usability
Functional utility, complexity comfort, and AI orchestration readiness.
Grade: A+Signals: 1
94%
Complexity Comfort
Agent comfort level based on API operational and structural complexity.
50
Security
Trust, risk posture, and security compliance.
Grade: C-Signals: 1
50%
Authentication Strength
Average quality of security schemes based on authentication method strength (weakest link for OAuth2).
100
AI Discoverability
Findability, semantic richness, and reasoning readiness.
Grade: A+Signals: 1
100%
Descriptive Richness
Clarity and depth of descriptions across API elements.
Score it yourself
Every API in the directory is allowlisted, so you can re-score it with no key required.
npx @jentic/api-scorecard-cli score <openapi-url>Why Jentic?
What agents get from Jentic-routed access to this vendor.
Setup
Wiring the MTN Developer API by hand means learning its X-API-Key header auth, choosing between the production and sandbox host, and threading reference ids through the Mobile Money payment flow yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import the MTN Developer API from the API Directory, store the API key once, and your agent calls it.
Permission scoping
The payment and transfer targets travel in the request body, so limit the agent to the operations it needs, such as requesting a Mobile Money payment or checking its status. You choose which operations are in scope, so money-moving calls like transfer are not included unless you add them.
Credential isolation
Your MTN API key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected into the X-API-Key header at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'take a mobile money payment' or 'send a carrier sms', and Jentic returns the matching MTN operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
FAQs
Specific to using MTN Developer API through Jentic.
What authentication does the MTN Developer API use?
The MTN Developer API uses an API key passed in the X-API-Key header on every request. Through Jentic that key is held in the encrypted vault and injected at execution, so the agent never holds the raw secret.
Can I take a Mobile Money payment and confirm it in one workflow?
Yes. POST /payments/request creates the collection on the subscriber's wallet and returns a referenceId, then GET /payments/{referenceId} returns the settlement status. Poll until the status is SUCCESSFUL or FAILED before fulfilling the order.
What are the rate limits for the MTN Developer API?
MTN applies environment-specific rate limits - sandbox is throttled lower than production and limits vary by operating unit (Ghana, Uganda, Cameroon, etc.). Use the sandbox base URL for testing and request a production quota uplift before launching a high-volume integration.
How do I send a transactional SMS through Jentic?
Search Jentic for 'send a carrier sms in africa', load the /messages/send schema, and execute POST /messages/send with the MSISDN and message body. Audit delivery via GET /messages/{messageId} on the returned id.
Is the MTN Developer API free?
MTN provides a sandbox tier for development at no cost. Production use is metered per channel and per operating unit - Mobile Money charges a transaction fee, SMS is charged per message, and country-specific commercial agreements apply.
Does the API work across every MTN country?
Coverage varies by operating unit. Mobile Money endpoints are live in markets with active MTN MoMo operations including Ghana, Uganda, Cameroon, and Côte d'Ivoire, while messaging is available wherever MTN runs the network. Check developers.mtn.com for the current per-country availability matrix.
Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the MTN Developer API?
Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, your own rules decide which MTN operations the agent may call and which credentials it uses. You can scope it to read-only or low-risk calls like requesting a Mobile Money payment with POST /payments/request and checking status with GET /payments/{referenceId}, while leaving money-moving operations such as POST /transfer out of scope unless you explicitly add them. Since payment and transfer targets travel in the request body, keeping the operation set narrow is how you control what the agent can move.
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