According to a Forbes report, the use of mobile phones as mobile money platforms has increased in South Africa. For people with no banks in the African continent, they are used to access financial services. Mobile money is a service offered by service providers that allow customers to convert electronic money stored in a mobile phone account to and from cash.
In Kenya, Safaricom's M-Pesa mobile money service boasts of 17 million customers. Director of the Mobile Money for the Unbanked Program Seema Desai told Forbes that the growth of mobile money has been phenomenal. "In June 2012, there were more than 56 million registered mobile money users in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is more than double the number of Facebook users," Desai added.
A Citibank report also considered mobile phones as a game changer in the payments industry. Citing figures from research firm Juniper Research, Citibank said there were over 850 million mobile payment transactions done worldwide. For 2013, the volume is expected to reach a total of USD 48 billion and would rise to USD 630 billion next year.
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