Value of mobile money transactions across different mobile schemes in the country have reached N250million at the end of November this year, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal.
The value was achieved on over 10,000 transactions for the month representing a slight increase from October transactions which recorded a value of N230million on a volume of 8,400.
The ability of a mobile money user a mobile scheme to send money directly to the wallet of a user on any other service provider was made possible by connectivity service being provided National Central Switch (NCS) that is offering the handshake, otherwise interoperability.
Without interconnectivity, the difficult decision of which mobile money service to choose might be influenced by which members of the customer’s peer group are already using a given service.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations revealed that transactions across mobile money schemes are specifically transactions from one mobile scheme wallet to another as well as from mobile scheme wallet to bank accounts.
Emmanuel Okoegwale, principal associate, MobileMoneyAfrica said that in the last one year, the industry has witnessed improvements in the provision of mobile financial services as industry players become more cooperative, building synergies and partnerships that will make mobilemoney a mass market product.
“Only last week, Paga launched on SIM TOOL KIT application of Etisalat and am sure many of such initiatives are in the offing. The uncertainty that prevailed some years ago gradually moved away and providers are getting positive evaluations from local and international investors in the mobile money space. The regulator is also actively creating the atmosphere for innovation, collaboration and sound risk processes to override strict punitive measures that regulators are known for” Okoegwale added.
He added that agency banking has finally taken off with the commercial launch of service by GTBank, Sterling and few others.
“Agency banking might just be the trigger to place Nigeria in the financial inclusion map as Banks are making decent efforts to ensure they service their existing customer base outside of the brick and mortar outlets while also attracting new segments which are currently left behind for reasons of no documentation, limited bank branches, social economy status among others” he stated
Corroborating Okoegwale on importance of agent distribution, Paul Mosimabale, head, product and business development, First Bank of Nigeria, noted that: “Robust and strong Agent distribution is very key for any mobile money initiative to be successful.”
He stated that the business of mobile money has a huge opportunity, but is hobble by challenges such as income, physical access, illiteracy and affordability.
It would be recalled that transactions among mobile money schemes commenced in March this year after the expiration of the deadline of February 28 Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) gave to operators to connect to National Central Switch (NCS) that is offering the handshake.