GSMA, an association of mobile operators and related companies devoted to supporting the standardizing, deployment and promotion of the GSM mobile telephone system has announced that the number of registered Mobile Money accounts globally, now stand 411 million as against 229 million in 2014.
In its latest report entitled: ‘2014 State of the Industry Mobile Financial Services for the Unbanked’ released yesterday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, it noted that with a 31% increase in 2015, the number of registered mobile money accounts grew at nearly the same pace as in 2014 (33%), reaching a total of 411 million globally.
This is almost 100 million new registered accounts in 2015, according to the report.
However, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa showed the strongest growth in adoption, accounting for 85% of all new accounts opened in 2015.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the researchers of the report see the majority of growth coming from outside the mature mobile money markets of East Africa—63% of all accounts opened in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2015 were in Middle, West, and Southern Africa.
The report stated: “The penetration of mobile money is also deepening relative to mobile connections. In markets where mobile money is available, 10% of mobile connections are now linked to a mobile money account, compared to 8% as of December 2014.27 Across Sub-Saharan Africa, one in three mobile connections is linked to a mobile money account as of December 2015”.
Of all sub-regions, East Africa recorded the highest level of mobile money penetration (55%), which is more than twice the level of smartphone penetration (19.4%), it added.
The most impressive growth occurred in West Africa, where the percentage of mobile connections linked to a mobile money account increased by nearly six percentage points in 2015 to reach 19.6%.
While there is still room for growth, the number of mobile money accounts is increasing faster than the number of mobile connections in countries where mobile money is available.
African Eye Report
