Welcome to Kenya – the home of Mobile Money!

According to news24 (quoting Kenyan Central Bank), Kenyans have – by the end of October 2015 – transacted KES 2.3 trillion (USD 23 billion) using mobile money!

news24 - Kenya Mobile Market to hit USD 27 billion by end 2015

During the month of October 2015 alone, Kenyans transacted total of USD 2.51 billion, with an average monthly transaction being USD 2.2 billion dollars.

That would make Kenyan mobile money market worth 27.4 billion dollars by the end of 2015 - the largest mobile money market in the world. And this market is in Africa!

I have - several times during my writing - used an example of only carrying my phone around to do purchases. There is almost no shop in Kenya that does not allow mobile money transaction. Everyone will at least, have Safaricom’s M-Pesa, while most will have Airtel, Orange, Equitel, Tanzaga and Mobikash equivalents.

With the mobile penetration reaching 38 million subscribers (which is around 88 percent of Kenyan population) that would make an average subscriber transact USD 710 dollars a year – for a developing country, this is an amazing amount of transactions.

What many people don’t realize is the fact that mobile money in Kenya doubles as a bank account for many people. You can receive salary on your mobile money and you can complete transactions. In fact, there are many more people with mobile money than with a bank account in Kenya. According to the Global Findex Database of the World Bank as of 2014, only 50% of Kenyans have bank account while around 75% have mobile money account.

Many will argue the reasons behind such a quick ascend of mobile money in Kenya and in the neighboring countries but the fact is that with no other infrastructure needed but your mobile phone, the idea behind mobile money found a fertile ground it Africa and it is just about to take over the world!

Let’s face it – everyone has a mobile phone. These days majority of 10-yr olds in developed countries have smartphones and statistics aren’t much different in the developing countries - the only difference probably being just the fact that in the developing countries it is used more as a business rather than entertainment device.

Kenyan example, however and most importantly, shows the changing paradigm of technology penetration in the modern world. While the west was first to introduce the mobile technology and the east popularized it and made it the largest industry in the world – the south is making it an everyday business tool!

Welcome to Kenya – the home of Mobile Money!

And welcome to Africa - the home of the changing technical paradigm!