“Mobile money—a form of banking that uses text messages to transfer money between accounts linked to phone numbers—is bringing financial services to the global poor. Between 2010 and 2023, the number of mobile money accounts grew from 13 million to 640 million worldwide, including 330 million in Sub-Saharan Africa,” reports The Doomslayer.
much of this growth has come from Sub-Saharan Africa; it’s home to more than half of the world’s accounts. In 2023, there were over 330 million active mobile money accounts in the region; more than one mobile money account for every four people.
What’s changed? One of the obvious drivers of this growth has been the widespread adoption of mobile phones, not just in the richest countries but across the globe. Mobile subscriptions have surged in nearly every region.
But the total number of mobile money accounts doesn’t tell us what percentage of people use mobile money. A small portion of people could each have many accounts. So instead of examining absolute numbers, let’s look at the share of people with mobile money accounts in Sub-Saharan Africa…The percentage of people in Sub-Saharan Africa with a mobile money account grew rapidly, from 12% in 2014 to 33% by 2021….in Ghana and Uganda, mobile money has become the norm, with most people now using it….Kenya’s M-PESA mobile money system increased household consumption levels and lifted 194,000 households (about 2% of all Kenyan households) out of extreme poverty….
Many people might be unfamiliar with how mobile money works, so let me briefly explain. You dial a short code for the mobile money provider, choose “send money”, and enter the recipient’s phone number (which serves as their account number). Next, type the amount and your secure PIN. That’s it — both the sender and recipient get an SMS confirmation within seconds. If you need to add funds to your mobile money account or retrieve your PIN, you can visit a local mobile money agent, often found in small shops or kiosks, which can be easier to reach than traditional banks.
Back in 2014, only 1.5% of people in the African country of Niger had a banking account. Only in two unusually prosperous nations in Sub-Saharan Africa did a majority of people have access to a bank account back then.
But by 2023, over 8% of people in Niger had a mobile money account, even though 62% of all people in Niger cannot read or write.
And there are around 4 million mobile money accounts in Chad, one of the world’s most remote and war-torn countries. Chad has been called the “Dead Heart of Africa” because of its remote, arid, and undeveloped nature. It has experienced civil war for most of its existence, and is one of the world’s least developed countries (ranked the fourth lowest worldwide on the Human Development Index). But many people there have mobile money accounts.
In 2000, Africa had no billionaires. Today it has 23.
