79 percent of adults in the world had a bank account in 2024, “up from 74 percent in 2021. Much of this progress is thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones,” reports The Doomslayer.
The World Bank explains:
Ownership of financial accounts increased globally by 5 percentage points between 2021 and 2024 and by 6 percentage points in low- and middle-income economies, in which 75 percent of adults now have an account.
Account owners increasingly use their mobile phones or debit or credit cards connected to their accounts to make transactions. More than half of all accounts in low- and middle-income economies are digitally enabled in this way…The increasing use of mobile phones is making a range of digital resources more widely available to people across the income spectrum. Eighty-four percent of adults in developing countries now have their own phone…Yet, about one-in-four of these adults have a more affordable basic phone, with streamlined functionality and no internet browser. That leaves only two-thirds of all adults owning full-featured smartphones that allow for apps and browsers….Smartphones are the primary way that people in developing countries access the internet, so often those without them are cut off from the communication, information, and income-generating opportunities that digital channels provide..Those in the poorest 40 percent of households are 8 percentage points less likely to own a phone than their wealthier peers, and women are 9 points less likely than men….
Regionally, smartphone ownership ranges widely, from around 80 percent of adults in East Asia, the Pacific, and Europe and Central Asia to just 33 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa and 40 percent in South Asia.
“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,” reported 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.
There are around 4 million mobile money accounts in Chad, one of the world’s most remote and war-torn countries. Chad, which has about 20 million people, 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.
