Here’s how Africa’s mobile money players fit into the global landscape

Think Africa and technology and chances are one of the first things that come to mind is mobile money. In conference talk after conference talk, you’ll hear Africa referred to as “the mobile continent”. There’s a good reason for that too.

This year for instance, the use of mobile financial services in sub-Saharan Africa to perform tasks like pay utility bills and send money to relatives could produce an estimated US$1.5-billion in fees for mobile-money providers by 2019.

Even Bill Gates reckons that “digital banking will give the poor more control over their assets and help them transform their lives and by 2030, 2-billion people who don’t have a bank account today will be storing money and making payment with their phones”.

Read more: Africa’s mobile banking apps are a serious weapon in their war against the telcos

But how do the continent’s various mobile money players fit into the global landscape? Well this infographic from MEF, a global community for mobile content and commerce, gives you a pretty good idea.

Players either from, or which operate on, the African continent make up a large portion of the services. And their presence could be even larger when you bear in mind that services such as Snapscan and Absa’s Payment Pebble aren’t included.

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