A GSMA report has revealed that over 224 million mobile money transactions totalling US$4.6 billion were made in June of last year alone, with Sub-Saharan Africa leading the pack.
The figure, surpassing PayPal transactions in Q1 of the same year, was released in a report released by the GSMA’s Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) programme, entitled the Global Mobile Money Adoption Survey.
The report states the mobile money industry continues to expand at an unparalleled rate, with there currently existing 150 live mobile money services for the unbanked.
Sub-Saharan Africa led the way with mobile money accounts in Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania and Uganda surpassing numbers of traditional bank accounts. The report states there are 56.9 million registered customers in Sub-Saharan Africa.
There are over 500,000 mobile money agents across Africa who help in depositing and withdrawing of cash through the mobile system. This outweighs the number of bank branches.
Safaricom, an integrated communication company in Kenya, recently partnered with the Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) to launch virtual account M-Shwari in conjunction with their mobile money transfer service M-Pesa. The new service has accrued over KSH3 billion (US$40 million) in savings in a few months.
“As the mobile money industry is maturing, we can expect to see both the social and financial benefits of mobile money increase and will continue to track this fantastic progress,”Chris Locke, managing director, GSMA Mobile for Development said.
The annual survey was developed to quantify the state of the mobile money industry and to enable mobile money providers to benchmark their performance.
