Mozambique: Number of mobile money agents jumps 12% in H1, now tops 250,000

The number of Electronic Money Institution (EMI) agents operating through mobile telecommunications networks in Mozambique increased by 12.2% in the first half of the year to more than 252,000.

According to a statistical report from the Bank of Mozambique seen by Lusa this Thursday, the total number of EMI agents amounted to 203,240 last September, a number that grew to 224,704 by the end of December and to 252,144 by the end of June.

The same report adds that all of the country’s 154 districts already have these EMI agents, from the city of Maputo, in the south of the country, with 36,795, to Larde, in Nampula province, in the north, with 11.

On the other hand, of the 154 districts in the country, 33 still do not have any branches of traditional banks, compared to 36 at the end of 2023.

Mozambique currently has three Electronic Money Institutions, run by the three mobile telecommunications operators, which provide financial services via mobile phone, including money transfers between customers or payment for services.

This solution facilitates the population’s access to financial services, using only mobile phones and EMI agents on the street.

In 2023, Mozambique’s EMIs broke the record for transfers, with more than 400 million, according to previous data from the Bank of Mozambique.

In this period, EMIs totalled 401,178,582 transfers – 338.5 million operations in the whole of 2022 and 324.1 million in 2021 – moving more than 340.2 billion meticais (€4.86 billion).

Also according to the Bank of Mozambique, the country had 11,412,194 EMI accounts in 2021 and 11,975,063 the following year.

In 2023, this number jumped to 16,607,021, until October alone, while banks have almost 5.5 million accounts.

In the budget proposal for 2024, the Mozambican government plans to continue fiscal policy reforms to “increase the level of revenue collection”, in particular by advancing “taxation of commissions of electronic money agents and institutions”.

The mKesh Mobile Wallet, from the state operator Tmcel, was the first created in Mozambique, in 2012, followed by M-Pesa, from Vodacom, in 2013, and the following year by e-Mola, from Movitel.