A new report from Juniper Research expects mobile phones to be used for money transfers by almost 400 million people worldwide in 2018. That’s more than two and a half times this year’s total, which is expected to be just under 150 million.
Most of this growth is expected to come from national rather than international services, with airtime top-ups currently seen as the main opportunity.
As well as warning service providers to ensure they have an effective network of agents and other support staff in place, the report also cautions against the imposition of taxes on mobile money services.
Dr Windsor Holden, Research Director with Juniper Research and the author of the report, said “While the impact [of taxation] on the Kenyan market appears to have been limited thus far, we should point out that this is the most mature mobile money market. The introduction of a similar tax in a market in the early stages of service adoption could serve as a severe brake on growth or make potential service providers reconsider planned deployments.”
[Whitepaper; report]