Kenyans transacted over Sh 960 billion through mobile money in the first three months of this of this year.
According to data from the Central Bank of Kenya, a total of Sh 322 .9 billion was transacted via mobile money in the month of January, Sh 300.8 billion in February and Sh 337.1 billion in March. This represents an increase of about Sh 30 billion from the total transactions in the last three months of 2017 which stood at Sh 930 billion.
The data also shows that the total number of agents stood at 196,002 up from 182,472 in the month of December an increase of about 13,550 agents.
The total number of transactions in the first quarter was Sh. 416 million compared to Sh. 405 million transactions in the last quarter of last year.
M-Pesa has about 22 million customers translating to about 81 percent of this market, Equitel money on the other hand controls about 7 percent of the market; Telkom’s T Kash has 1 percent market share same as Airtel Money.
The increase in mobile money transactions is partly driven by mobile loans. Money Kenyans borrow loans through services such as Mshwari, KCB M-Pesa loans, and Equitel loans.
Increase in sports betting is also pushing the volume of transactions up as many people transfer money using the betting firms pay bill numbers.
Earlier this year Safaricom and Airtel announced mobile interoperability between the two networks which enable customers to send and receive money between the different networks seamlessly.
Over 3 trillion shillings was transacted through mobile money in 2017.
