The lack of banking services in East Africa has made mobile money transfers extremely popular, with more than half a billion dollars transferred each month using the technology, said a study
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD) report on Mobile Money for Business Development in East Africa, published recently, focused on several aspects of mobile money transfers.
“More than half a billion dollars are transferred in the region using cell phones each month through the largest of a number of commercial services on offer. The practice is burgeoning in developing regions where traditional banks and banking activities are in short supply,” said the paper published by UNCTD.
The governments in several East African countries have been working hard to ensure that mobile money services bring desired results, added the report.
According to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) Association, which tracks mobile money deployments around the world, some 130 mobile money systems have been implemented since March 2012.
Africa has taken the lead in mobile money implementation, with about 60 mobile money services already in place, a quarter of which are in the East African Community (EAC). Three of the EAC platforms have more than one million active subscribers, according to the GSM Association.
“M-Pesa, operated by Safaricom of Kenya, is currently the most popular platform. It has 15 million active customers who transfer an estimated US$658 million every month. In addition, M-Pesa reports that it has more than 37,000 mobile money agents and is linked with 25 banks,” said a GSM report.
The UNCTAD study called for more collaboration at the EAC level in regulating mobile money so that intraregional use of the technology could be expanded.
