The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) reported that Kenyans deposited an enormous Sh1.3 trillion through mobile money transfer providers in the three months leading up to December 2021.
The latest industry data indicates that total deposits held in M-Pesa, Airtel Money and T-Kash between October and December, last year, were the largest in a single quarter and coincided with the lifting of the nationwide Covid-19 curfew.
“The period October to December 2021 was marked by increased activity across mobile network platforms due to the festivities,” reads CA’s second-quarter sector statistics report for the financial year 2021/2022.
About Sh1.252 trillion of the Sh1.253 trillion deposited through mobile phones went to M-Pesa, Sh1.36 billion to Airtel Money, and Sh85 million to T-Kash.
This resonates with the ongoing debate over the extent to which M-Pesa dwarfs its competition in the sector.
Transactions between customers and businesses grew by more than Sh1.3 trillion, with M-Pesa transactions totaling Sh1.3 trillion, Airtel Money transactions totaling Sh1.4 billion, and T-cash transactions totaling Sh86 million.
During the review period, the number of active mobile (SIM) subscriptions stood at Sh65.08 million, a 0.30 percent increase over the Sh64.89 million subscriptions announced by the industry at the end of September.
The use of mobile money services has increased as a result of their accessibility, as well as consumers’ preference for using cashless methods to combat the spread of Covid-19.
Mobile money subscriptions, for example, increased by 1.8 percent in three months to Sh35.2 million in December 2021, increasing mobile money penetration from 71.0 to 72.3 percent.
The ICT sector, according to the regulator, has experienced robust growth as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic that pushed consumers to adopt online ways of conducting business and mobile money payments as safer modes of accessing and paying for goods and services.
