Page 24 - State-of-the-Industry-2013

State OF the induStry 2013

the state of mobile

money usage

Key findings

• The number of active users is growing fast. In June 2013, there were over 60 million active
mobile money accounts globally.
• An increasing number of services are reaching scale and 13 have over 1 million active users.

• Activating customers remains a challenge in most markets: globally, only 29.9% of registered
accounts were active in June 2013.
• Mobile money continues to drive fnancial inclusion: nine markets have more mobile money
accounts than bank accounts in 2013, compared to just 4 in 2012.

9 registered mobile money accounts 9

In June 2013, there were over 203 million registered mobile money accounts worldwide. In Sub-Saharan Africa
only, there were 98 million registered accounts in June 2013; this is more than twice as many as the total number
of Facebook users in the region . east africa accounts for a particularly large portion of mobile money accounts
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globally, representing 34% of total registered accounts.

Today, at least nine markets already have more registered mobile money accounts than bank accounts, compared
countries
have more to just four last year: Cameroon, the democratic republic of Congo, Gabon, Kenya, madagascar, tanzania, uganda,
mobile zambia and zimbabwe . in these markets, the mobile money industry has made fnancial services accessible to more
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money
accounts people than the traditional banking industry ever has. it is also very encouraging to see the number of these markets
than bank more than doubling in just 12 months. all these markets are in Sub-Saharan africa, a sign of the transformational power
accounts
of mobile money in this region, where banking penetration remains very low. in seven of these markets the regulator
has allowed mnOs to provide mobile money services. While regulation difers slightly from country to country, this data
highlights the importance of creating an open and level playing feld where both banks and non-bank providers can
contribute to growth of the ecosystem and to achieve greater fnancial inclusion.

9. most mobile money services rely on a mobile wallet that allows customers to store value in an account that can be accessed through their mobile phone. Once they have value in their mobile wallet (because, e.g., they have
converted cash into electronic value or the value has been transferred to them from another account), customers can initiate payments and transfers directly through their mobile phone without needing to go to a mobile
money agent. to understand how many people are using mobile money, it is useful to look at the total number of registered mobile money accounts.
10. michelle atagana, “Facebook’s jonathan labin talks about ads, mobile and the focus on africa” (december 4, 2013), available at http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2013/12/04/facebook-s-jonathan-labin-talks-about-ads-
mobile-and-the-focus-on-africa
11. this number may be even higher as data on the number of bank accounts was not available for a number of countries. the data on bank accounts are from the imF Financial access Survey database and other imF and
World Bank sources where FaS data was not available. We were not able to fnd data for the following markets: Bahrain, Benin, Bolivia Botswana, Burkina Faso, Côte d’ivoire, egypt, el Salvador, ethiopia, Georgia Guinea,
Guinea-Bissau, haiti, honduras, iran, jamaica, lebanon, lesotho, mali, mauritania, mongolia, morocco, namibia, nicaragua, niger, Paraguay, Qatar, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra leone, Somalia, Sri lanka, tunisia, united arab emir-
ates, vanuatu, venezuela and vietnam. it might be the case that the percentage of active bank accounts is higher on average than the percentage of active mobile money accounts. unfortunately, we do not have access to
information on the level of activity for bank accounts. this is why the comparison is based on number of registered accounts rather than on numbers of active accounts.
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