Mobile Money keeps making strides ever since its inception with not only having more registered accounts than normal bank accounts to now accounting for UGX 54 trillion in transactions just this year. That amount is half our national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) while the other half is covered by the government and other transactions.
Mobile money now counts 22 million registered accounts across the social divide as quoted by Bank of Uganda (BoU) figures according to Daily Monitor.
It reports that the platform itself has been very instrumental in bringing millions of Ugandans to the formal banking sector.
“Mobile money transactions are now hitting UGX 54 trillion, representing half of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”Said Bank of Uganda Deputy Director Louis Kasekende.
In June 2015, mobile money had 18 million accounts with an estimated UGX 24 Trillion transactions, moving closer to UGX 44 Trillion by March 2017 while they now stand at UGX 54 Trillion making it the fastest growing money transaction platform. Still according to the deputy governor.
Traditional banks catching up
This growth hasn’t left traditional banks settled with many launching mobile banking solutions of their own and now venturing into agency banking after policies governing this were relaxed by the central authority and guidelines set.
Mobile Money lessened the need for one to visit a physical bank branch to transact and registration is pretty basic with less paperwork involved, something agency banking can borrow a leaf from. A mobile money account holder can transact with proximity of his neighborhood with agents scattered almost on every block or local trading centers.
However, Mobile Money and traditional banking are far from apart as the float on Mobile Money is actually held by an actual physical bank account and only released when the transaction is prompted. Mobile Money has also morphed into other areas to include payments and now savings and loans away from its traditional roots of just a money sending and receiving service.
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