Half of Kenya’s GDP Moved through Mobile Phones in 2018: The Power of Mobile Money Transaction in Kenya

Kenya’s mobile money transaction sector continues to expand and pulling surprises each times statistics are released by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).

Having voted the best country that has successfully achieved financial inclusion, Kenya prides herself for having the best mobile money platforms led by Safaricom’s M-Pesa, Telkom’s T-Kash and Airtel’s Airtel Money.

Kenyan commercial banks have embraced the use of mobile phones with the majority of them having more than 60 percent of their products and services accessed via mobile phones.

Moving Half of Kenya’s GDP via Mobile

Fresh data from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has shown that Kenyans transacted nearly half the country’s GDP via mobile money platforms.

A total of 3.98 trillion shillings was moved via mobile in 2018, a 10 percent (or 346 billion shillings) increase from what was recorded in 2017.

Kenyans transacted 10.92 billion shillings per day via mobile in 2018 with M-Pesa taking the lion’s share of the transactions.

The mobile money transactions in 2018 was an equivalent to 44 percent of Kenya’s GDP. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had projected that Kenya’s economy would stand at 9.09 trillion shillings in 2018.

Mobile Money Accounts in Kenya

There were more than 47 million mobile money accounts in Kenya by the end of 2018 according to stats given by CBK. In 2017, the mobile money accounts stood at 37.39 million.

In December 2018, Kenyans transacted 367.77 billion shillings, an increase by 35.14 billion shillings from December 2017.

On average, every Kenyan has an active mobile money account that they use on a day to day activities in sending, receiving cash and making of payments for goods and services.

The commonly used mobile money transaction platform in Kenya is M-Pesa followed by T-Kash and Airtel Money. Most banks have also partnered with local telecommunications companies to allow their customers to access most of their banking services such as making deposits and withdrawals via mobile phones.

The Coming of Fuliza

The coming of Fuliza by Safaricom seems to be taking over the market by storm. Kenyans are now able to transact, pay for goods and services even when their M-Pesa account is zero.

Fuliza is an overdraft facility that allows M-Pesa customers to complete their transactions even when they have insufficient funds in their M-Pesa account. Basically, it is an overdraft. An overdraft will allow you to continue transacting even if your account has no funds or not enough to cover the withdrawal.

According to Safaricom CEO, Bob Collymore, Fuliza already exceeded expectations on its eighth day. On day eight, the overdraft facility had already received one million customers and issued 10 million US dollars as an overdraft.

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