NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Africans are increasingly tech savvy with an 80% mobile penetration rate, and the growing ubiquity of cellular connectivity in Africa makes it the ideal environment for mobile payment solutions.

So says Jeremy Osborne, field marketing manager for telecommunication solutions at Gemalto Africa, who points out that with such a high mobile penetration rate, the mobile phone is at the heart of the latest innovations Africa is embracing because it is the best channel to ensure new services are delivered to the masses.

Osborne explains that mobile payment includes remote payment, using mobile money solutions to make peer-to-peer payment, international money transfer, mobile cash in and cash out, as well as contactless proximity payment using mobile near field communication (NFC) technology for payment in shops.

“We can definitely say that remote mobile payment is getting mainstream in Africa as 52% of mobile money services deployed worldwide are actually taking place in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the latest reports from the GSMA.”