Safaricom CFO Dilip Pal recently commented on the latest Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) report, noting how mobile money has become a mainstream financial service.
The remarkable growth and leadership of mobile money services in Kenya has been highlighted by the latest Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) report. This is particularly evident in the M-PESA platform, according to Safaricom CFO Dilip Pal.
M-PESA went live in Ethiopia last month and Safaricom is optimistic that it will transform mobile money services, drive financial inclusion and revolutionise the digital landscape in country.
“The country has had limited access to formal financial services, with a significant portion of its population excluded from these systems. This has hindered economic development and citizen’s ability to efficiently save, invest, and transact,” Dilip said.
His optimism is well placed. Since its launch in Kenya in 2007, M-PESA has cemented its presence in-country by empowering millions of people and enabling them to access banking services, transfer money, pay bills, and engage in e-commerce, all through their mobile phones.
M-PESA propelled financial inclusion in Kenya to 84 percent from a low of 26.7 percent in 2006. Today, M-PESA boasts of having over 51 million monthly active customers in the country, according to Dilip.
In fact, in a recent interview with CFO East Africa Dilip said, “In Kenya, if MPESA experiences an outage, the economy grinds to a halt and this speaks to the profound role we play for the people of this country. I have been here for two years, and eight months and I cannot close my eyes and tell you what the Kenyan currency looks like simply because I use MPESA for all my transactions,” he explained.
M-PESA has been rolled out in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania.
