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

Thursday, October 17, 2013

The volume of mobile money transactions processed in Nigeria is gathering momentum after a slow start as operators adopt new innovations.

In June, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) reported that licensed operators had processed transactions amounting to N64 billion in the previous 12 months, however 60 percent of the total had taken place in the final three months.

More recently, the CBN provided a figure of N10.1 billion ($63m) as processed mobile money transactions for the month of August.

“The rate of growth of (mobile money) has gathered momentum,” said FBN Capital analysts, in a research note released on October 8. “New applications abound: one such is the recent deal between a household name in finance and a mobile operator to take insurance to the mass market.”

The growth of mobile money is however coming off a low base.

Tunde Lemo, deputy governor, CBN, told a conference in Abuja recently that Nigeria boasted less than 6,000 bank branches, 12,000 ATMs, 200,000 point-of-sale (PoS) terminals, more than 100 million active mobile lines and less than 20 million bank accounts.