According to new report from Juniper Research, the number of consumers using mobile handsets to make person to person (P2P) domestic money transfers will reach 340 million by 2016, up from 84 million in 2011.
The study titled “Mobile Money Transfer & Remittances” suggests that Safaricom’s MPESA service in Kenya inspired both network operators and financial service providers in developing markets to use mobile distribution mechanisms as a means of enabling unbanked/underbanked consumers to access financial services for the first time.
Carriers on their end get to increase ARPU while also using the service as a customer retention tool. Financial service providers, on the other hand, can attract new customers with the potential of subsequently upselling additional products such as insurance and savings accounts.
However, the report also cautioned that the success of money transfer services was dependent upon incumbent regulatory regimes being conducive to service deployments. Furthermore, it added that while the complexity of regulation can slow down service deployment, its requirements can also act as a brake on service adoption…
As usual, you can get more information about the report from Juniper’s website.