Sub-Saharan Africa Registers 469m Mobile Money Users

By Adedapo Adesanya

Sub-Saharan Africa retained its spot as the largest mobile money region in the world, recording the highest users of mobile money agent users globally, the 2019 GSMA Mobile Money Report has revealed.

In the report, GSMA noted that total number of registered mobile money accounts in the world surpassed 1 billion milestone in 2019, adding that the average global daily transaction hit $2 billion.

The report titled State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money sighted by Business Post showed that the region gained 50 million new mobile money accounts in 2019, raising the total number of registered accounts in the region to 469 million.

Out of all registered users in the region, active mobile money accounts were pegged at 181 million. This was up 15.3 percent of the total recorded in 2018.

The total volume of transactions was 23.8 billion, while the total value of transaction rose by 27.5 percent to $456.3 billion in the year.

In a breakdown, East Africa with 54 services in the region accounts for the highest with 249 million registered accounts and $293.4 billion in value. Of which 102 million are active which performed 17.1 billion transactions.

West Africa has a total of 163 million mobile money account with 56 million out of it active. The sub-region has 59 mobile money services, the highest in the Sub-Saharan Africa region performed 4.8 billion transactions and raked in $130 billion.

Central Africa, with 17 mobile money services has a total of 48 million registered accounts, of which 20 million are active and performed 1.8 billion transaction worth 30.4 billion.

Southern Africa with 14 live services in total has 9 million registered accounts, of which 3 million were active and recorded a transaction volume of 165 million worth $2.5 billion in the year under review.

It was also disclosed that in the year under review, the digital transaction represented 57 percent of mobile money flow globally, exceeding cash in and cash out values. It, however, stated that only about $176 billion of the digital transactions was digitised by mobile money agents.

Looking ahead, GSMA report forecasts that the annual transaction performed using mobile money should surpass $1 trillion dollars by 2023 and considering the current global pandemic restriction to movement and physical transactions, this might force many more to accept digital transactions.