Paper
Digital Financial Services in Africa: Beyond the Kenyan Success Story
Assessing the growth potential of digital financial services in seven African countries
66 pages
This paper explains the success of digital financial services (DFS) in Kenya and presents challenges and opportunities for the development of DFS in seven other countries: Benin, Cameroon, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, and Zambia. It is based on the methodology of the Mobile Money for the Poor program for understanding the potential for markets in DFS. The paper also analyzes whether opportunities exist for investors for the development of DFS through debt or equity investment in mobile banking platforms. Key findings include:
- Benin has 400,000 registered DFS users, representing 7% of the adult population;
- Cameroon has 2.7 million registered DFS users representing 22% of the adult population;
- Mozambique is the least developed DFS market studied with just 550,000 registered DFS users, representing 4% of the adult population;
- Nigeria has the highest level of banked adults within the study, at 60% financial inclusion;
- Senegal has 1.5 million registered DFS users representing 20% of the adult population;
- Uganda has the most developed DFS market with 14.2 million registered DFS users representing 77% of the adult population;
- Zambia has 2.8 million registered DFS users but only 2.4% of the adult population are active users.
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