According to the Juniper Research Study, published byCommsMEA, Africa is set to lead the market, with several African mobile operators now generating more than 10 percent of their revenues from mobile money.

The report reveals that Safaricom’s M-Pesa service recorded mobile money revenues of more than USD 330 million in the latest financial year, making it the most successful mobile or online money transfer service worldwide.

According to the report, recent surges in both transaction volumes and values were driven by increased implementation of both cross-border and intra-national remittance interoperability.

The research cited the traffic uplifts engendered by recent agreements between Safaricom and MTN (for the Rwanda-Kenya corridor) and by national interoperability agreements in markets such as Tanzania and Pakistan.

Mobile Money has become an extremely popular service within Africa(Source: Telecomlead.com)

However, the research cautioned that while inadequate regulation still constrained growth in a number of markets, low adoption or activity rates could in many cases be attributed to poor decision making by service providers. The study found that in Nigeria, a number of services failed to gain repeat usage because of the high cash-out fees, while savings accounts in other markets had withdrawal fees that were inappropriate for low-income users or savers.

Mobile Money has become an extremely popular service within Africa; However, the service has taken a heavy blow and been declared illegal within the borders of Uganda.

In Kenya, Safaricom has obtained temporary orders against its rival’s aggressive advertising on mobile money transfers. According to the report, Safaricom feels resentment towards Airtel’s move to display the M-Pesa logo on its advertorial to market the Airtel Money Service.

IT News Africa