Tanzania drives Africa’s e-money growth

What you need to know:

Tanzania has been listed as African country with the highest mobile money penetration. Currently, there are at least 40 million mobile telecommunication subscribers of which 21 million are money accounts.

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania has been mentioned as among of the next drivers of high growth in the mobile money operation in the world, after recording highest service’s penetration rate.

According to the Digital Money Index 2018 published recently by CitiGroup mobile money penetration rate in Tanzania is currently at 70 per cent.

It is followed by Ghana and Uganda which recorded a penetration growth of between 40 and 70 per cent.

The mobile money services in Tanzania has turned into part of life as customers are using for paying bills, taxes, mobile banking services, topping up airtime and conducting other transactions.

The index says Tanzania is one of the world leaders in mobile money transfers (mobile phone-based money transfer), with 44 per cent of adults having access to it and a total of 20 million subscribers.

There are nearly 40 million mobile money accounts which have been registered making 95 million mobile money transactions per month in total, transacting an average of $1.6 billion per month.

Vodacom Tanzania was the first company to introduce mobile money services in the country in 2008. Tanzania currently has five services providers with a total of 21 million subscribers, according to Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA).

Along with Kenya, the three countries rank among the top 10 in terms of penetration rate of this payment service between 40 per cent and 70 per cent.

“Though the penetration rate is high in these countries, there is still room for remarkable growth due to important volumes of cash payments and poor competition of the other payment solutions,” says Citi Group report.

The GSM Association (GSMA) indicates: “Given that only a small minority of the Tanzanian population has access to formal banking services, the consumer’s unimpaired ability to use mobile money services rather than being required to travel long distances to bank branches to make transactions in person reduces transaction costs and increases the efficiency of the economy.”

TCRA statistics show that Tanzania had 20.8 million mobile money subscribers during the second quarter of this year ending June, an additional 600,000 people when compared with 20.2 million during the second quarter of last year.

However, efforts will have to be made in terms of regulation notably, in order to duplicate the same success as in Kenya and reach the same generalization level reached in China where 500 million residents use mobile money in almost all of their daily financial transactions, says Citi group.

Africa has more than 320 million active mobile money subscribers, according to the index, and will have to be patient for its next step in the development of mobile money.