According to the latest GSMA data, mobile money continues to be a cornerstone of financial inclusion across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), while increasingly evolving into a critical digital financial ecosystem.
In 2024, the continent processed over $1.1 trillion in mobile money transactions, accounting for the majority of global activity.
Adoption continues to deepen, with up to 40% of adults in the region now holding mobile money accounts, and the sector contributing approximately 4.5% to 5% of GDP in several markets, underscoring its role as both a driver of financial inclusion and broader economic growth.
Within this rapidly expanding ecosystem, MoMo by MTN, with 70 million active accounts, has evolved beyond a simple payment platform into a powerful driver of job creation, business growth, and economic resilience.
The scale of this impact is increasingly visible in national economies.
The GSMA estimates that by the end of 2023, mobile money services had contributed more than $720 billion to the GDP of countries where
they operate, with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for roughly $190 billion of that total.
These figures translate into tangible improvements in everyday life—from school fees being paid on time and goods cleared efficiently at border posts, to micro-merchants moving from cash-only transactions to digital payments. Supporting this growing digital economy, MoMo by
MTN alone processes more than 900 million transactions every month.
At the same time, remittances remain a critical financial lifeline for the region. In 2025, approximately $45 billion in mobile money-enabled
international remittances were processed with SSA accounting for three- quarters of that value, supporting household consumption, education,
and small enterprises, while helping families navigate ongoing economic pressures.
The policy conversation has sharpened around cost and reliability too.
Globally, the average price of sending remittances still hovers above 6%, with SSA among the most expensive regions. The World Bank’s
cost benchmarks underscore why efficiency matters, with every percentage point saved keeping more value circulating locally.
Trust sits at the center of adoption. Users want the money to arrive near real time, in full, every time. Customer protection is embedded into the MoMo platform by design, including transparent pricing, real-time monitoring, AI-driven fraud detection, and instant transaction notifications.
Encouragingly, mobile-money-funded remittances are now among the cheapest ways to send cross-border. This is reflected in the GSMA’s 2024 cost survey, which shows average total prices around 3.5% to send $200 via mobile money, roughly 2.8 percentage points below the global average for all methods. The reason for this being that fees are lower and, crucially, FX margins are contained.
In the West African Economic and Monetary Union, for example, the absence of FX conversion drives average prices down to roughly 1.74%.
That cost transparency is a design feature, not a marketing claim, and it translates to tangible consumer surplus.
Mobile money has also become the on-ramp to formal finance for millions. According to the Global Findex, a third of adults in sub-Saharan Africa now have a mobile money account—three times the global average—and use cases are broadening from person-to-person transfers to daily merchant payments and bill settlements.
The GSMA’s latest data shows customers paid over $100 billion to merchants via mobile money in 2024, up more than 20% year-on-year, confirming that digital payments are migrating from occasional big-ticket transactions to frequent, low-value, everyday spend.
From an operator’s perspective, reliability is driven by platform design, licensing, and the strength of collaboration with partners and regulators.
In our case, we have built a strong foundation in wallet services across our markets by enabling seamless peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions, as
well as bank to wallet and wallet to bank capabilities.
This success is underpinned by the MoMo platform, which combines scale—serving over 70 million monthly active wallets across more than 13 markets—with a unified integration layer that allows partners to deliver value instantly to wallets in multiple countries without the need for complex, corridor-by-corridor integrations.
We have also achieved strong results in remittances, with more than 5.7 billion transactions in 2025, over 600 active partnerships, and more than 300 live corridors. These achievements reinforce our conviction that Africa can operate as a single, seamless corridor for money movement, without unnecessary barriers.
However, we believe there is still significant potential to unlock.
Realizing this vision will depend on supportive, forward-looking regulatory frameworks that encourage innovation and help remove
remaining constraints.
Interoperability and competition should be seen here as complements. A more connected system expands inclusion and lowers costs, while
competition drives innovation and better user experiences.
Recent IMF work surveying central banks in the region points in the same direction: payments innovation, fast-payment systems, and mobile
money thrive when policy and industry align around open, trusted infrastructure.
The operational effect was immediate with fewer reversals, faster turnarounds, and more repeat business because customers got what they
value most—speed with certainty.
Africa’s economic backbone is its micro and small businesses. When MSMEs can accept digital payments, settle suppliers across borders, and
build a verifiable transaction history, they unlock access to credit and reduce cash-handling risk.
The data already shows the shift. Ecosystem uses such as merchant payments, bill pay, and mobile-to-bank transfers are growing at double-
digit rates, with bank-to-wallet funding up 24% in 2024.
That ‘circulating value’ inside wallets is a leading indicator of formalization and resilience.
A Guest Editorial