MM Sees Growth, Hits 300% Increase in Transactions

The value of transactions across the various mobile money (MM) schemes in the country recorded about 300 percent increase between January and July this year, underscoring a tipping point towards the cashless society, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal.

As at the end of January, the monthly value of transactions across different networks stood at N300 million but reached N1.2billion as at end of July. This figure did not include transactions carried out within individual networks.

The volume of transaction within the same period also increased from 12,000 deals in January to 35,000 in July representing 199 percent increase.

This showed the increasing ability to replace cash with digital money transferred via mobile phone.

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that the ability of a mobile money user of a mobile scheme to send money directly to the wallet of a user on any other service provider was made possible by connectivity service being provided by National Central Switch (NCS). 

Emmanuel Okoegwale, Principal Associate, MobileMoneyAfrica, said that financial inclusion has become the buzz word within the regulatory, policy, financial, innovators, and technology circles and in the formal financial services space but significant barriers still stand in the way of reaching the bottom of the pyramid in Africa.

He added that beginning of the year was herald with uncertainty due to the expected exit of the former Central Bank Governor.

“Many of the innovations from the mobile network operator and other stakeholders had been long planned but were kept in the cooler awaiting the change of baton of the chief regulator which was smooth and brought in a new era. As witnessed in the last few months, stakeholders like the mobile network operators are becoming more active in the emerging mobile financial services space in Nigeria.

“Collaboration in terms of agency network sharing and roll out had also grown over the months though usage at agent level cannot be quantified, however it is growing. We have seen MTN and Diamond Bank launched the Yello account, Glo is actively working with three licensed operators to deploy agency network,” he said.

He added that a recent agent accelerator study conducted by the Helix institute on agent network in Nigeria, highlighted all that was not well with the mobile money sector and that it is increasingly clear that mobile money is a distribution business and not a technology play as some providers thought.

“The report showed clearly the major challenge faced by operators in Nigeria which is the recruitment, development, management and sustainability of a viable agent network which is still a major challenge across board”.

Corroborating Okoegwale, Godwin Emefiele, governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said at the launch of GloXchange in Lagos that the apex bank is determined to use telecommunications to deepen financial services in the country in order to reduce the 46 percent of the population that does not have access to financial services.

He noted that a functioning payment system will bring about economic growth.