The success of mobile money transferring in Kenya has seen the East Africa nation become the top ranked nation in terms of readiness to adopt mobile payments within Africa and fourth globally
The MasterCard Mobile Payments Readiness Index ranked Kenya ahead of countries such as Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa in its readiness to embrace mobile payments due to the wide penetration and usage of mobile money transfer services.
Mobile phone penetration in Kenya has risen to an impressive 70 per cent. The country, however, falls behind Singapore, Canada and the Unites States in the rankings.
The index analyses 34 countries globally on their readiness to use person to person, mobile-web commerce (m-commerce) and mobile contactless payments at points of sale.
The index ranked each market’s readiness for payments on a scale of 0 to 100, with the global average settling at 33.2. The Kenyan market scored 40.4 on the scale, just 1.1 point behind the US, but ahead of both Nigeria and South Africa.
“Kenyan consumers’ very high levels of familiarity with and frequent usage of mobile payments makes this nation the top score on consumer readiness component,” the index stated.
It added that the success surrounding M-Pesa money transfer service had contributed immensely in developing mobile payments in East Africa’s largest economy.
With the introduction of money transfer system by all the four mobile service provides in Kenya, namely Safaricom, Orange, Yu, and Airtel, the majority of Kenyans have taken to the new technology, not only to send and receive money, but also to pay utility bills.
Commercial banks and microfinance institutions have also been using the service to disperse loans and consequent repayments, while insurance companies have been encouraging policy holders to pay premiums through money transfer services.
The index release has come at a time when the Central Bank of Kenyan has said that it intends to start monitoring mobile money transfer to ensure the platforms are secure from cyber criminals as the amounts transacted continues to grow significant.
By end of 2010, there were 16 million registered mobile money transfer users in Kenya, while close to KES 1 trillion (US$ 11.8 billion) was transferred in the country. A staggering KES 727.8 billion (US$8.6 billion) alone was transferred via Safaricom’s M-Pesa platform.
John Muchira
