Mobile user transacts on the M-Pesa platform. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Cash transacted via mobile phones hit Sh3.7 trillion in the 12 months through March.
This
was helped by rising uptake of mobile loans, amidst concern that a lot
of the advances go into the fast-growing gambling industry.
Central
Bank of Kenya (CBK) numbers indicate the volumes transacted between
April 2017 and March 2018 increased by Sh219 billion from Sh3.48
trillion in a similar period a year earlier.
Upswing in
mobile commerce, including growing popularity of easily accessible but
relatively expensive mobile loans, has in recent years driven growth in
mobile payments.
The CBK does not break down the share by mobile operators but
Safaricom’s M-Pesa controls more than three quarters of the
transactions.
ALSO READ: Number of mobile money agencies up 22.6pc
National wealth
The
payments in the period are equivalent to nearly half of Kenya’s
national wealth – gross domestic product (GDP) – which stood at Sh7.75
trillion last December.
“M-Pesa is the tail that wags
the dog, and it’s being felt everywhere in the world today,” former CBK
governor Njuguna Ndung’u said last month.
“It has
generated a very vibrant economy. Even the taxes are being designed
using that payment platform, and even government revenues are being
directed to specific targeted areas (via mobile money platform).”
March posted the highest ever monthly value at Sh337.11 billion, representing a Sh16.93 billion rise over a year earlier.
Transactions value
That
pushed the value of transactions in the first three months of the year
to nearly Sh960.95 billion, an increase of Sh61.89 billion compared with
Sh899.05 billion in the first quarter of 2017.
Mobile
payment accounts rose to 39.34 million in March 2018 from 33.92 million a
year earlier while agents increased to 196,002 from 157,855.
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