The number of Electronic Money Institution (EMI) agents in the country, which 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 a statistical report from the BoM to which Lusa had access this Thursday, 22 August, the total number of EMI agents in September last year was 203,240, a figure that grew to 224,704 by the end of December 2023 and to 252,144 by the end of June this year.
The same report adds that all of the country’s districts already have these EMI agents, from the city of Maputo, in the south of the country, with 36,795, to Larde, in the northern province of Nampula, with 11. On the other hand, of the country’s 154 districts, 33 still don’t have any branches of traditional banks, compared to 26 at the end of 2023.
Mozambique currently has three Electronic Money Institutions, owned by 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.
The number of Electronic Money Institution (EMI) agents in the country, which operate through mobile telecoms operators, increased by 12.2 per cent in the first half of the year, to over 252,000, covering all 154 districts in the country.
BoM
According to previous data from the Bank of Mozambique, the Electronic Money Institutions beat the record for transfers in 2023, with more than 400 million transactions. The EMIs totalled 401.1 million transfers in this period – 338.5 million operations in the whole of 2022 and 324.1 million in 2021 – handling more than 340.2 billion meticals.
Also according to the BoM, the country had 11.4 million EMI accounts in 2021 and 11.9 million the following year. In 2023, that number skyrocketed to 16.6 million, just up to October, while the banks have almost 5.5 million accounts.
The total number of EMI agents stood at 203,240 in September last year, a figure that grew to 224,704 by the end of December 2023 and to 252,144 by the end of June this year.
BoM
In the budget proposal for 2024, the 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-owned 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.
