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

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Since its launch in 2011, the nation’s journey toward a cashless economy has registered steady progress with benefits such as reducing financial exclusion and enhancing customer experience.

Locally, the roll out of a cashless economy is dependent on automated teller machines, point of sale devices and mobile money transactions.

Statistics from the Ministry of Youth and ICT as of December 2014 indicate that mobile money was the greatest facilitator of cashless economy, with the number of subscribers growing by over 120 per cent from 2,538,651 to about 5,585,075.

The same period saw the number of mobile money transactions double to over 100 million up from Rwf691.5 billion which was more than twice the amount transacted in the previous year.

In 2013, Rwf330 billion was transacted while in 2012, total transactions amounted to Rwf161 billion.

The ministry said the country will continue registering steady economic growth as mobile telecom operators step up their efforts to acquire more subscribers to the payment services.