The Bank of Mozambique (BoM) has announced that the introduction of new technologies and the modernisation of payment infrastructures has led to a significant increase in the country’s inclusion levels over the last two years, approaching 100%, Lusa reported on Thursday, October 10.
According to the information provided by the central bank, in its most recent Economic Situation and Inflation Outlook report, with information up to September, the central bank states that from December 2022 to June 2024 ‘the percentage of the adult population with access to digital financial services rose from 68.5 per cent to 94.5 per cent’.
According to the financial institution, this growth ‘stems, among other things, from the start of operations’ between the three Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs), which operate via mobile phones, banks, microbanks and other service providers, through SIMOrede.
‘Levels of financial inclusion have grown significantly due to the introduction of new technologies and the modernisation of payment infrastructures,’ says the bank. Figures from the same institution reported by Lusa in August show that almost 95 out of every 100 adults in that country have an account with an EMI, but only 30 have bank accounts.
A BoM report shows that 30.9 adults out of every 100 had an account with one of the 15 or so commercial banks operating in the country, with men (41.5) predominating over women (19.3).
At the end of 2023, this coverage (30.9) was the same, while in 2022 it was 30.6 and in 2021 30.4, reads the document, noting that 94.5 out of every 100 Mozambican adults have an account with an EMI, compared to 93.2 at the end of 2023, 68.5 in 2022 and 67.2 in 2021.
At the end of June (2024), the number of e-money accounts was higher than the number of men (105.8 accounts per 100 men), while 81.8 women per 100 had an account.
Growth of EMI agents in Mozambique
The number of EMI agents in Mozambique, who work through mobile telecoms operators, increased by 12.2 per cent in the first half of the year, to more than 252,000, covering all 154 districts in the country. According to official figures, the total number of agents totalled 203,200 in September last year, a figure that grew to 224,700 by the end of December and to 252,100 by the end of June.
Meanwhile, all the country’s districts already have EMI agents, from Maputo city (southern region) with 36,795, and Larde, Nampula province (north) with 11. On the other hand, of the 154 districts, there are 33 that still don’t have any traditional bank branches, compared to 26 at the end of 2023.
Mozambique currently has three EMIs, from the three mobile telecoms operators, which provide financial services via mobile phone, including money transfers between customers or payment for services.
This is a solution that makes it easier and more widespread for the population to access financial services, using only mobile phones and IME agents on the street, and which in 2023 reached a record number of transfers, with more than 400 million operations, according to data from the central bank.
According to the same source, IMEs totalled 401.1 million transfers last year – compared to 338.5 million operations in the whole of 2022 and 324.1 million in 2021 – handling more than 340.2 billion meticals (4.8 billion euros).
In the budget proposal for 2024, the Mozambican government plans to continue the fiscal policy reforms to ‘increase the level of revenue collection’, namely by ‘taxing the commissions of electronic money agents and institutions’.
The mKesh mobile wallet, from state operator Tmcel, was the first created in Mozambique in 2012, followed by Vodacom’s M-pesa in 2013 and Movitel’s e-Mola the following year.
