Account penetration in Africa is growing thanks to mobile money. The percentage of account penetration in Africa is now led by Kenya, which is in front of a BRIC country- South Africa – mostly due to the success of M-Pesa and mobile money. It’s not hard to understand how a financial account improves peoples lives. You only have to imagine living exclusively with cash for a month. Each month you would receive your salary, which you would need to store in cash in a safe place, coming back to it each day or week to top up your wallet. If you overspent while out it would be a nightmare, and buying anything on the app store would suck. So when account penetration in these African countries hits levels like the first world, it’s time to pay attention.
It’s obvious that owning an account in today’s world is an important part of liberty. It allows you to participate in the tech economy, as well as the world economy. In Kenya what is interesting is that people now look at owning a mobile money account as equal to a bank account. 48% of them prefer both, but 28% would prefer a mobile money account only to 9% that would prefer a bank account only. This economy is moving to mobile first. As the MNOs bring on additional services to their platform, they’ll also make it easier to transact and purchase services and goods via mobile money. The gap is going to grow between people who prefer a mobile account and those who prefer a bank account, all while more of the country also gets its first account. That’s a good thing and I’m excited to see it happen.