Mobile money services are booming worldwide, as more people embrace digital payments. The GSMA’s latest ‘State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2023’ reveals that mobile money accounts grew by 13% in 2022, reaching 1.6 billion users.
This is a remarkable achievement, considering that it took only five years to double the number of customers from 800 million to 1.6 billion. Mobile money transactions also reached new heights in 2022, with an average of $3.45 billion processed daily. This surpassed the $3 billion forecast made in 2021.
The total transaction value for mobile money increased by 22% from $1 trillion in 2021 to $1.26 trillion in 2022. However, despite this impressive growth, there are still over a billion people who lack access to formal financial services.
The GSMA urges governments to adopt policies that support mobile money deployments and foster a vibrant ecosystem for digital inclusion. Max Cuvellier, GSMA’s Head of Mobile for Development, said: ”..there is still a long way to go to bring those services to over a billion people worldwide who remain unbanked.”
The GSMA is therefore encouraging governments worldwide to keep developing the enabling policies that can support mobile money deployments and further boost the growth of this crucial ecosystem.
The report also shows that there are now 315 active mobile money services around the world, with peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers and cash-in/cash-out transactions being the most popular use cases. Mobile money also enabled more people to pay their bills online, with a 36% increase in bill payments using mobile money in 2022 – the fastest-growing use case.