Business
Kenya: Mobile Money growth continues – supercedes debit cards transactions
The new data comes as an increasing number of financial services and telecommunication companies and commercial banks announce partnerships that are expected to help them tap into money transfer and plastic money payment systems.
In September last year, Airtel announced a partnership with MasterCard Worldwide and Standard Chartered Bank that allows Airtel subscribers to make payments using the MasterCard network and shop online using a platform dubbed PayOnlineInKenya.
A few weeks later, Orange Money launched the Orange Money Visa Card in partnership with Equity Bank and global payment systems provider Visa International that allows Orange subscribers to access over 22 million outlets that use the Visa payment system, allowing phones to work as debit cards.
Safaricom and I&M Bank also have a service that allows M-Pesa customers to transfer money from their accounts to a Visa pre-paid card dubbed M-Pesa prepay Safari Card which can be used globally.
In the third quarter of last year, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) said that mobile money services had become the preferred mode of payment and transferring money, beating even plastic money.
“For retail payment systems, mobile money transfers are today the most widely used mode of payment in Kenya followed by the use of plastic cards,” said the CBK, showing that Sh560 million (US$ 6.4 million) was moved using plastic money compared to Sh732 billion (US$ 8.4 billion) through mobile money transfer between January and December 2010.
In the first nine months of last year, Sh428 billion (US$ 4.9 billion) was moved using 8.65 million plastic money cards that were in the market.
