Mobile wallets are most popular ... in the south of the Sahara

Mobile payment systems and mobile wallets are far from news to all of us. Users of many countries use mobile wallets very actively. Nevertheless, the most active use of such systems are residents of African countries in the south of the Sahara. According to Word Financial's Global Financial Inclusion report, about 12% of adults in this region (64 million people) have mobile wallets , or what people in Africa call a “mobile money account.” This system is not related to banks. Approximately half of the users of such “accounts” have traditional bank accounts.



However, about 50% of mobile wallets users in Africa are completely financially dependent on their phones. Such systems are especially popular in Kenya, where about 58% of the adult population of the country gets access to their money through a mobile phone. As for mobile wallets, this is a prepaid service of mobile operators, not related to financial institutions. With this system, users are able to pay bills and send cash.





')

A good example of this service is M-Pesa , owned by Vodafone. The service allows you to put money on a mobile account, and transfer money to other users of the system (paying for goods or services, for example). The transfer is made by SMS, with PIN protection.



It should be noted that the owners of such services often provide microcredit services, with low interest rates - lower than those of the same banks. Thus, a mobile wallet in the south of the Sahara plays the role of both a debit card and a credit card, without the need to introduce a payment infrastructure that is characteristic of the use of plastic. In this case, the “terminal” can be even the cheapest phone that can send SMS.