By Chris Donkin

Global daily mobile money transactions reached a value of US$3.5 billion in 2022, industry association GSMA revealed, with US$1.3 trillion processed by suppliers across the whole year.

In its State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2023, the industry association highlighted the daily figure had well exceeded the $3 billion predicted in the 2022 edition.

The annual figure of US$1.3 trillion represents a 22 per cent year-on-year increase on figures reported for 2021. Alongside an increase in total and daily transaction values, there was also rapid growth in the number of registered accounts and use of bill payment services.

Across the globe there were 1.6 billion registered mobile money accounts recorded for 2022, a 13 per cent increase. The GSMA noted it had taken the industry 17 years from the first deployment to reach the first 800 million mobile money customers, compared with five years to reach the second 800 million.

In terms of providers, the industry association reported there were 315 live mobile money deployments across the world in 2022, but noted there was still work to be done with around 1.4 billion people still unbanked.

Across markets offering services, there was a 41 per cent increase in the number of agents, with a significant part of that growth in Nigeria where the number of providers increased following regulatory changes.

GSMA head of mobile for development Max Cuvellier said mobile money “has afforded millions of unbanked and underserved people in low- and middle- income countries access to digital financial services”.

“However, even with this significant growth, there is still a long way to go to bring those services to over a billion people worldwide who remain unbanked.”