FEATURED STORY

Mobile Money Transactions Cross Sh400bn Mark In July

BT ReporterSep 3, 20201 Mins read1.9k

A Kenyan transacting on M-Pesa. Mobile money lending has contributed to financial inclusion and cheaper way of sending money from Kenya to Rwanda and Tanzania. www.businesstoday.co.ke

A Kenyan transacting on M-PESA. NCBA has overhauled the M-Shwari core platform [Photo/BD].

Mobile money transactions exceeded the Ksh400 billion in July, data posted by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) shows.

The CBK data shows that the transactions which include cash transfers and payments for goods and services amounted to Ksh450.98 billion, representing a 14.96 percent increase from Ksh392.17 billion in June.

Mobile money transactions have been on an upward trajectory every month since May after falling to Ksh308 billion in April due to movement restrictions in the country.

The increase in value moved could be attributed to the calculated return to normalcy and reduced use of physical cash to avoid the spread of the virus.

“The economy has not been doing well and now a lot of people are being forced to dig into their assets like fixed deposits to finance day-to-day expenditure,” Ken Gichinga, the chief economist at Mentoria Economics told the Business Daily.

Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) statistics show that M-PESA is still the market leader commanding 98.8 percent of the market share whereas Airtel Money and T-Kash recorded market shares of 1.1 and 0.05 percent respectively.

At the end of the first quarter of 2020, there were a total of 29.18 million active registered mobile money subscriptions of which 28.84 million were on M-PESA, 329,660 Airtel Money and 13,333 on T-Kash.

The value of Business to Business transactions (B2B) stood at Ksh878.16 billion with the entire amount being transacted on M-PESA alone.

The value of Person to Person (P2P) transactions stood at Ksh674 billion. Of the amount, Ksh673.6 billion was transacted on M-PESA, Ksh348.3 million was transacted on Airtel Money while Ksh68.8 million was transacted on T-Kash.

Business to Customer (B2C) transactions stood at Ksh365.33 billion with Ksh365 billion changing hands on M-PESA, Ksh220.2 million on Airtel Money and Ksh13 million on T-Kash.

Customer to Business (C2B) transactions stood at Ksh310.47 billion with the bulk of the amount Ksh310.1 billion being transfered via M-PESA.

Some 608.16 billion was deposited during this period with Ksh606.56 billion beng done on M-PESA, Ksh1.58 billion on Airtel Money and Ksh23.8 million on T-Kash.