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

Friday, October 11, 2019

By Yomi Kazeem

Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, with a population of some 200 million people, has long been one of the big hopes for mobile money and financial inclusion evangelists. And yet, until very recently, it seemed its government and regulators were reluctant to listen to the proverbial “good word.”

Financial inclusion in East Africa has been significantly impacted by the wide adoption of mobile money services—led by Kenya— but the uptake has been slow in Africa’s two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa. While South Africa’s more advanced economy often treats mobile money as a “nice to have”, the situation in Nigeria is quite different. There, just 40% of people have bank accounts, so the economy would likely get a boost from the expansion of mobile money services.

Photo courtesy of Commonwealth Secretariat.