Central Bank of Kenya(CBK) has released a report that shows Kenyans transacted Kshs1.5 trillion ($17.33 Billion)via mobile money in 2012, representing a 31.5 percent growth in value.
In the report dubbed “Kenya Financial Sector Stability Report 2012”, CBK states that this money was transacted in 575 million mobile money transfer messages, representing a 32.8 percent growth in the message volumes in 2012.
The average value per transaction declined from Kshs2,700 in 2011 to Kshs2,672 in 2012. “This reflects increased small value transactions probably, to support more people faced with economic difficulties in 2012,” the CBK report said, “It also reflects more financial inclusion by poor people.”
The number of mobile money users increased to 21.1 million users from the previous 19.2 million users in 2011, representing a 9.9 percent growth. The agents across all the networks also increased to 76,912 from the previous 50,471, representing a 52.4 percent growth.
Safaricom’s M-Pesa service still remained the most widely used, with over 16 million users on the platform.
More Kenyans are taking up card payments, with the usage level in 2012 growing strongly in terms of Automated Tellet Machines (ATM) cards, Credit and Debit Cards, and Point of Sale (POS) terminals.
“The number of transactions and equivalent value increased from 122.4 million transactions worth Kshs 577.9 billion in2011 to 224.6 million transactions worth Kshs 1 Trillion in 2012,” added the report.
