This archive report was first published on 4 August 2020.
On the surface, the value of mobile money transactions in Kenya appears to have bucked the trend of the country's economic slowdown in the first half of 2020. According to a report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, published on August 4, 2020, mobile money transactions in the first six months of 2020 increased to KSh 2.144 trillion from KSh 2.136 trillion recorded in the same period in 2019.
However, a closer look at the data reveals a more nuanced picture. The total number of mobile money transactions in the six months decreased to 853 million transactions from 918 million transactions in 2019. This represents a decline of 65 million transactions, or about 7%.
The average monthly mobile money transfers in the first half of 2020 were 142 million compared to 153 million in the same period in 2019. This decline in the number of transactions suggests that the Central Bank of Kenya's relief measures aimed at increasing the use of mobile money instead of cash in daily transactions may not have had the desired effect.
Despite the introduction of measures such as the waiver of fees for transactions below KSh1000 by Safaricom and the maintenance of free mobile money – bank transfers by the Central Bank of Kenya, the data suggests that consumers may not have taken to mobile money as expected.
