Don’t know about you but I love mobile money services. Simply put, they are the future, allowing us to access our bank accounts while on the go, even without a laptop. In developing countries, such services are set to bring banking services to the so called unbanked, a part of the population who don’t have access to the traditional banking branches.
On that note, MTN Uganda announced that it is approaching the one millionth mobile money services user. So far they managed to register 890,000 users to the MobileMoney service, which is 16% of MTN’s subscriber base. The goal is to reach 2 million users by the end of this year, and 3.5 million by 2012.
To celebrate the success of the service, MTN Uganda shared some interesting numbers:
- $195 million was moved through the platform since launch in March 2009
- 11.8 million transactions since launch in March 2009
- $21 USD average transaction – the average Ugandan person lives on under $1 USD a day
- 1005 active agents and more than 2,500 direct sales reps
- More than 1,600 MTN MobileMoney service outlets
- Approximately 60% of transfers are to recipients in rural areas – serving the unbanked
Love it and I’m looking forward to see how similar services bring a better livelyhood in other parts of the world…
And in case you wonder, MTN MobileMoney is a SIM card deployment, which was made possible in partnership with Fundamo.