130m active mobile money users recorded globally in 2015

GSMA announced that the number of active mobile money accounts worldwide now exceeded 130 million, with more than 100 million new registered users added in 2015. According to the latest report on the state of financial services worldwide, there were 1 billion mobile money transactions in December 2015 at around 33 million per day which is more than double the amount PayPal processed globally.

With 411 million registered mobile money users during the time in question, according the GSMA report, there were at least 19 countries with more mobile money accounts than bank accounts.  According to the report, with 30 services with more than 1 million active users, only 5 of those services actually have more than 5 million active users. The report also added that there were 271 active services in 93 countries. The figure the report said is more than the number of officially recognized currencies in the world which is 180.

 Similarly, 1 in 3 mobile connections in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the report were linked to a mobile money account even more impressive, according to the GSMA’s 2015 State of the Industry Report on Mobile Financial Services, mobile money penetration in East Africa exceeds 50 per cent. 

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