The Covid-19 pandemic has driven a “global surge” in digital payments with two-thirds of adults worldwide now making or receiving digital payments, rising from 35% in 2014 to 57% in 2021 in developing economies and from 88% in 2014 to 95% in 2021 in high-income economies, according to the World Bank’s Global Findex 2021 database... More
The number of registered mobile money accounts globally grew by 13% in 2020 to reach a total of more than 1.2bn, according to research by the GSMA... More
Kenyan social enterprise Food for Education is speeding up the rollout of its Tap2Eat NFC cash replacement system for subsidised school meals following a successful pilot in three primary schools in Nairobi involving 150 students... More
GSMA report highlights 20% annual increase in mobile money accounts to more than 866m worldwide — GSMA — “At the end of 2018, there were more than 866m registered accounts in 90 countries — a 20% increase on 2017. The report also shows that the mobile money industry processed transactions worth US$1.3bn a day in 2018, with digital transaction values growing at more than twice the rate of cash transactions.”
Launch of the 2017 State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money — GSMA — “The mobile money industry is now processing a billion dollars a day and generating direct revenues of over US$2.4bn. With 690 million registered accounts worldwide, mobile money has evolved into the leading payment platform for the digital economy in many emerging markets.”
M-Pesa pioneer Michael Joseph, founding CEO of Safaricom and now director of mobile money at Vodafone Group, explains how the service works and the lessons learned from building and deploying one of the world’s most successful mobile money services in an in-depth Q&A that is now available to download free of charge from the NFC World Knowledge Centre... More
Visa chasing Indian payments market as mobile money gains traction — Developing Telecoms — “Visa CEO Alfred Kelly has affirmed the company’s goal to claim a ‘fair share’ of India’s incipient cashless payment market by offering low cost, low hassle solutions to merchants… ‘Because it’s an exciting market and a lot is going on, there’s a number of players trying to get into the market,’ said Kelly. ‘We clearly have to have a way that’s low cost, low hassle, low friction to enable merchants to sign up.’”
Sub-Saharan Africa driving global market for mobile money — GSMA — “The new study points to a decade of growth in mobile money services in the region following the launch of M-Pesa in Kenya in 2007. It notes that there are now seven markets in the region where more than 40% of adults are active mobile money users: Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.”
PARTNER NEWS: A 40-page magazine featuring articles about conversational commerce, national ID-based payment systems using India’s Aadhaar biometrics ID system as a case study, and the financial gender gap in relation to mobile money is now available to download from the Knowledge Centre... More
Over half a billion mobile money accounts have been registered in 92 countries, with 1.3bn transactions processed in December 2016 alone, research from GSMA reveals... More
PARTNER NEWS: Mahindra Comviva is making it possible for mobile money operators to increase user engagement with the addition of a new service that enables relevant offers and promotions to be delivered automatically to users’ mobile devices... More
A project enabling mobile money transfers to take place at the point of sale in areas of less-developed countries with poor or no mobile network coverage has been unveiled, by removing the reliance on SMS messaging, and, instead, allowing two people to conduct a payment by copying short authentication codes between their phones... More
One million subscribers of mobile network operator MTN Rwanda’s MTN Mobile Money service will be able to make in-store payments at thousands of retail outlets within six months using their NFC mobile phones through MTN Tap&Pay, unveiled in collaboration with Verifone Mobile Money and NFC technology provider Youtap... More
Mobile network operator MTN has discontinued its Mobile Money service in South Africa due to “lack of commercial viability” following its launch in 2012... More
Kenyan carrier Safaricom is testing a new PIN-based NFC-enabled ‘Tap-and-Go’ card for its M-Pesa mobile money service... More
More than one billion transactions were processed through mobile money services globally in December 2015, the GSMA reveals, with registered accounts growing by nearly 100m — taking the total to 411m... More
PARTNER NEWS: Customers of Iraqi mobile network operator Asiacell can now make P2P transfers, settle bills and pay merchants using AsiaHawala, a mobile money service powered by Mahindra Comviva’s Mobiquity Money solution... More
PARTNER NEWS: Mahindra Comviva and mobile money and payments provider EcoCash have won the Best Mobile Innovation prize at the sixth Kalahari Awards for the EcoCash Savings Club... More
Revenue from mobile money transfer services will hit US$2bn this year, doubling to $4bn by 2018, Juniper Research says, citing Africa as the market leader... More
Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson has partnered with Verifone Mobile Money to add support for NFC and contactless payments to its mobile commerce platform, enabling its carrier customers in emerging markets to add in-store mobile payments capabilities to their mobile money services... More
