Africa Powers Global Mobile Money Milestone as Industry Hits $2 Trillion

The world’s mobile money industry reached $2 trillion in annual transaction volume in 2025, and Africa can claim much of the credit.

The milestone, documented in the GSMA’s State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026 released on  Tuesday, underscores how a financial technology that was pioneered on the continent has grown into a global economic force. It took the industry 20 years to reach its first trillion dollars in transactions. It took just four more years to double that figure.

Sub-Saharan Africa was the primary engine behind that surge. The region accounted for most of the 268 million new registered accounts added globally in 2025, pushing the worldwide total to 2.3 billion. Monthly active accounts grew by 15 percent to 593 million, the strongest growth rate since 2021, with Africa again contributing the bulk of new users.

“Mobile money has become one of the world’s most impactful financial services,” said Vivek Badrinath, Director General of the GSMA. “What began as a simple way to move money has evolved into a global financial ecosystem.”

For African economies, the stakes of that evolution are particularly high. Mobile money remains a primary gateway to financial services for hundreds of millions of people who are excluded from traditional banking. The industry’s expansion into credit, savings and insurance products is deepening that access. According to the report, the number of mobile money providers offering insurance products grew by a third in 2025, with credit and savings products also widely available.

Yet the report also flags stubborn challenges that disproportionately affect African users. Despite the record growth, nearly three-quarters of all registered accounts globally remain inactive every month. The GSMA points to transaction taxes, a policy tool employed in several African countries, including Uganda and Tanzania, as a significant driver of this inactivity, warning that such levies push users back toward cash and erode gains in financial inclusion.

The gender gap also remains a critical concern. Across seven in ten countries surveyed, women are less likely than men to hold a mobile money account. And outside of Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria,  three of the continent’s most mature mobile money markets, women who own accounts are still less likely than men to have used them in the past month. Closing that gap, the report argues, must be treated as a policy priority if mobile money is to fulfil its inclusion mandate.

On regulation, the picture is mixed. More than 60 percent of mobile money providers said interoperability requirements and consumer protection regulations had supported their operations, a sign that progressive regulatory frameworks, such as those seen in Kenya, Tanzania and Ghana, are working. But cross-border data transfer rules are emerging as a fresh constraint, with nearly a quarter of providers saying they have hindered their ability to operate across markets.

That is a meaningful barrier in a region where remittances are a lifeline for millions of families, and where cross-border trade corridors are a key driver of economic growth.

The report also highlights mobile money’s expanding humanitarian role, particularly in Africa’s conflict-affected and disaster-prone regions, where it has enabled rapid cash transfers to displaced populations and crisis-affected communities. That potential, however, depends on strengthening digital literacy,  a gap that remains wide in many parts of the continent.

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