Paris. Mobile phones and rising connectivity in Africa will give rise to a new market in mobile financial services, creating explosive opportunities for business on the continent, research has found.
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) estimated that in three years, 250 million Africans without access to traditional banking services “will have mobile phones and a monthly income of at least $500”.
That could translate to projected revenues of $1.5 billion (1.3 billion euros) from mobile financial services, the group said in a report released Tuesday.
That’s key for a continent where the banking system is as yet hugely underdeveloped, but where strides have already been made in mobile banking.
In Kenya, for example, the mobile money system has nearly 18 million users thanks to the M-Pesa service run by British telecom giant Vodafone’s subsidiary Safaricom.
In Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country and one of its fastest growing economies, mobile phones are now being used to push an electronic payment service by phone called M-Birr.
This is all good news for Africa, where a mere 25 per cent of Africans have a regular bank account because “financial service providers haven’t made the continent a priority,” the group’s report said.
The “high cost to serve and low margins of traditional bank accounts in Africa” are the main reasons for the oversight.
However, sub-Saharan Africa leads the world in mobile money accounts, according to the World Bank.
“While just 2 per cent of adults worldwide have a mobile money account, 12 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa have one,” the Bank said in a separate study based on 2015 data.
That number is projected to grow now that more than 50 per cent of Africans over the age of 15 own a mobile phone and since mobiles are a low-cost way to reach a huge market. (AFP)
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