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Active mobile money customers reach 61 M in 2013

The number of active mobile money users continues to grow rapidly year-on-year, with more than 61 million accounts active as of June 2013, compared to 37 million in June 2012, a new report reveals.

Services have also expanded across a greater number of regions, with 219 services in 84 countries at the end of 2013, compared to 179 services in 75 countries at the end of 2012.

The GSMA’s Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) program’s third annual Mobile Financial Services State of the Industry Report draws on the results of the annual MMU Global Adoption Survey, as well as on data from the online MMU Deployment Tracker and qualitative insights on the performance of mobile financial services over the past year.

“Each year our review reveals greater insights on the wide range of uses of mobile money and on how operators are working collaboratively in developing mobile money services to meet growing customer demand," said Tom Phillips, Chief Regulatory Officer, GSMA.

GSMA said positive regulatory reforms that are enabling mobile money services are contributing to the growth of the industry in terms of number of deployments. The majority of services remain in Sub-Saharan Africa, with 52 percent of all live mobile money deployments located in the region. However, mobile money is also expanding outside of the region, with, for example, 19 mobile money launches planned in Latin America.

The report noted that the increased number of mobile money users and access points illustrates the important role of mobile financial services in driving financial inclusion in developing countries.

At the end of 2013, nine markets, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, already had more mobile money accounts than bank accounts, compared to just four markets last year. In these markets, the mobile money industry has made financial services accessible to more people than the traditional banking industry.

The development of other mobile financial services, including 123 mobile insurance, mobile credit and savings services, 27 of which were launched in 2013, will allow service providers to deepen financial inclusion by offering financial services beyond money transfer and payments.

Mobile transactions are also growing much faster than airtime top-ups and on-net transfers. In June 2013, 53,000 merchants were accepting payments via mobile money and 16,000 organizations use mobile money as a payment platform for accepting bill payments or making salary payments.

“As the mobile money industry grows, we are seeing how these services are benefiting the lives of millions of citizens in developing countries all around the world. We will continue to track these tremendous developments and work with mobile operators and the broader ecosystem to expand the scope of services available and to extend services to more of the world’s population,” Phillips added.