M-Pesa – one of the largest mobile money services in Africa – has seen a steady increase in customer numbers from 2017 to 2024, eventually reaching over 66.2 million customers in the financial year ending 31 March 2024. M-Pesa is a mobile money service run by Vodafone and Kenyan telecommunications provider Safaricom, that provides payment and financial services, even if a customer has no access to a bank account. M-Pesa is also Known as Vodafone Cash in Ghana and Egypt.

This paper explores patterns of financial transactions at the individual level in order to establish the effects of mobile money’s usage in a variety of country case examples. Data from the Financial Inclusion Insights program was analyzed for Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Uganda, to establish differences between individuals who use mobile money services and their non-user counterparts. This analysis builds on previous research into the household level effects of the widely popular M-PESA services in Kenya to see if financial transaction patterns can be replicated in other country data. Contrary to previous literature, m-money usership was not a consistent predictor of transaction frequency and transaction distance for the country cases where data was available. To examine m-money’s potential as a complement or substitute to formal banking, usage frequency of bank account services was regressed on m-money usership, which was interacted with personal bank account ownership. Findings suggest that m-money encouraged bank account usage in the country samples where m-money was less prevalent overall, and discouraged bank account usage in the country samples where it was more prevalent. Overall, this study finds considerable difference in the effects of mobile money by country, as well as discrepant effects when interacted with bank account ownership.

Mobile payments in Saudi Arabia or the UAE were much smaller in size than, for example, in Kenya in 2020, but are said to increase somewhat faster by 2025. That said, neither country from the Middle East is expected to overtake any of the three African countries listed by the source in terms of mobile payment transaction volume. Part of this, is the head start Kenya especially has: The use of mobile money application M-Pesa, for instance, consistently increased for several years in a row. Indeed, the African continent is viewed as one of the main areas for mobile payment growth as payments run by mobile operators such as Vodafone are viewed as a viable alternative for a population that does not have access to banking services.