Mobile money reached a new milestone last year as the value of transactions processed worldwide topped $1 trillion for the first time. That’s according to a report released this week by the GSM Association, which tracks data from the mobile telecommunications industry.
An increase in merchant payments, international remittances and government humanitarian aid are some of the factors that led to the 31% growth in transaction value compared to 2020. Transaction value is a important marker, but the growth of mobile money is observable through other measures.
According to the GSMA, which has released 10 consecutive annual reports, there were 316 mobile money services in 98 countries last year, up from 169 in 71 countries in 2012. As more service providers launch, agents are also proliferating, from just over 500,000 ten years ago to 5.6 million last year. Having more agents means more people can open mobile money accounts; registered mobile money accounts grew tenfold to 1.35 billion over the decade. While less than half of these accounts were active on a 90- or 30-day basis last year, there are 10 times more now than a decade ago.
These increases are most visible in sub-Saharan Africa. East Africa, where Safaricom’s M-Pesa helped popularize mobile money in the mid-2000s, remains the region with the highest transaction values – $403 billion last year. GSMA data suggests that West Africa continues to grow rapidly, with a 60% increase in deal value since 2020.