The unbanked and social payments to drive growth
Mobile money service users worldwide are set to break the one billion mark by the end of 2016, equating to 20% of unique mobile users, according to a new forecast from Strategy Analytics’ Mobile Payment Service.
The report predicts mobile money transactions to more than double from $200 billion in value in 2016 to $571 billion by the end of 2022.
This forecast sizes the worldwide market for mobile money users, transaction volumes and total transaction value across major regions, from 2010 to 2022, including mobile money services for the unbanked in emerging markets and for banked customers in developed regions.
Nitesh Patel, director, mobile payments service at Strategy Analytics, noted: “The mobile money sector continues to be driven by demand for access to basic financial services in emerging markets, the increasing maturity of established mobile money services, such as M-PESA in East Africa, MTN Money, and Easypaisa, and the rising integration of payments in social platforms, in particular WeChat, BBM Money, and Facebook Messenger.”
The mobile money sector is evolving beyond typical use cases, including person-to-person money transfer and airtime top ups, to enable a broader set of use cases which includes the payment of utility bills, salary and benefit dispersal, merchant payments and international remittances.
David Kerr, vice president, Strategy Analytics, added: “We predict a maturing mobile money ecosystem to raise the number of active mobile money users, the average number of mobile money transactions per user, and ultimately the overall value of transactions. Almost 75% of mobile money users will come from Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa regions.”
