Page 9 - State-of-the-Industry-2013

exeCutive Summary

• With an increasing number of services reaching scale, mobile money continues to be a driver of fnancial inclusion. mobile money
extends access to payments and fnancial services beyond the reach of traditional fnancial institutions in many developing coun-
tries. at the end of 2013, nine markets already had more mobile money accounts than bank accounts, compared to just four last
year. in these markets, the mobile money industry has made fnancial services accessible to more people than the traditional bank-
ing industry ever has.
• the development of other mobile fnancial services including mobile insurance, mobile credit and savings will allow service
providers to deepen fnancial inclusion by ofering fnancial services beyond money transfer and payment.
• 123 mobile insurance, credit and savings services are live of which 27 were launched in 2013, highlighting that there is strong
interest in leveraging mobile to deepen fnancial inclusion.
• the mobile insurance industry is gaining traction with the help of specialist intermediaries creating commercial and partner-
ship models that appear to be accelerating product launches (30 in the past two years).
• the business case is challenging, particularly because providers must rely on a large sales force and adequate customer
education to acquire new customers as customer acquisition is more sophisticated and mobile insurance credit and savings
services are currently not sold through mobile money agents.

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