Vodafone reveals strong growth in M-Pesa transactions as it launches service in Ghana

VODAFONE has revealed that the number of M-Pesa mobile money transactions grew twenty-six percent year-on-year in the six months to end-September 2015, as it announced that it had launched the service in the West African country of Ghana.
The operator said more than 2 billion individual M-Pesa transactions were carried out in the six-month period, adding that the number of active users of the mobile money service increased 27 percent year-on-year to 23.4 million in the same period to end-September. M-Pesa customers are now served by 240,000 agents, the company said.
Vodafone noted that Ghana is the 11th market among its operations in Africa, Asia and Europe where M-Pesa has now been launched. The company is marketing the service as Vodafone Cash in Ghana, where it said there is a large potential user base of around 15 million people – about 64 per cent of the population – that do not have bank accounts.
Michael Joseph, Vodafone director of Mobile Money, said the service liberates users from ‘the risks associated with carrying cash.’
The company moved to a full launch following a pilot conducted last August. Joseph said there was strong demand for the service during the trial phase that ‘shows that Ghanaians greatly value the freedom, peace of mind, security and convenience that M-Pesa offers.’
Vodafone noted that usage of M-Pesa in Kenya and Tanzania has been strong in 2015, which it credited to the launch of an international money transfer option between the countries in April.
The number of transactions in East Africa as a whole has also been boosted by an agreement enabling M-Pesa users to make direct money transfers to customers of MTN’s Mobile Money service in six countries in the area.
Recent figures from global payments technology company Adyen suggested that mobile payments are beginning to gain traction following many years of sluggish growth.
The company reported last October that global mobile payments accounted for 30 percent of all online transactions during the third quarter of 2015, compared to 28.7 percent in the second quarter.