Mobile banking has been soaring throughout Africa. With it has come the financial inclusion of unbanked populations as well as a transformation in the way daily business is conducted.
This cashless system has connected millions of people, and changed their lives by giving them access to formal banking services in ways they previously did not have. Users can send and receive money as well as make payments using their mobile phones. According to a recent report by the Boston Consulting Group, these payment activities – along with deposit income – could produce up to $1.5 billion in fees for mobile-financial-service providers in sub-Saharan Africa by 2019.
Kenya is at the forefront of Africa’s mobile money market. This is largely due to the success of M-PESA, a mobile banking system launched in 2007 by the country’s leading mobile service provider, Safaricom. In 2014, there was an increase in M-PESA customers, the average number of transactions per customer and M-PESA agents, according to the company’s Annual Report. The report further states that M-PESA, which has 19.3 million registered customers, generated 26.56 billion Kenyan Shillings in revenue.
This article has been written by Patricia Egessa, @ThursdaysSpace on Twitter for the African Dev Jobs Blog. Read more on it here.
