Verticals

Mobile money, the reboot

Mobile money isn’t new, but, to date, it’s yet to find traction in SA. Now, both MTN and Vodacom have set their sights on changing this.

30 March 2020

The GSMA estimates there are over 5.18 billion unique mobile subscribers across the globe. At the same time, the World Bank estimates that at least 1.7 billion people remain unbanked. Among myriad other functionalities and benefits arising from the global spread of mobile phone penetration is the growth of mobile money systems that let users store money, get loans and make payments securely.

Mobile money increases access to traditional finance for tens of millions of previously underserved people. Kenya’s M-Pesa, for example, pioneered by Safari.com, has been a massive success in improving the country’s financial ecosystem and providing a new platform to serve its unbanked population. Today, M-Pesa is said to have the biggest reach of any financial services provider on the African continent, with 38 million active customers, processing over 11 billion transactions annually.

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