Mobile Money is a mobile payments system based on accounts held by a mobile operator and accessible from subscribers' mobile phones. The conversion of cash into electronic value (and vice versa) happens at retail stores (or agents). All transactions are authorised and recorded in real-time using SMS.

African MobileMoney
Operating areaAfrica
MTN Mobile Money agent's stand in Ghana

In 2008, a Ugandan software developer named Ronald Egesa of Mobitrix Uganda Ltd was reported by the leading newspapers to have developed the country's first mobile phone bank that he called SmartCash [1] It was reported to be a network independent service.

In 2009, GSMA made a grant to Safaricom to support the development of a social transfer payment project via M-Pesa.[2]

M-PESA was developed by Vodafone and first deployed by its Kenyan affiliate Safaricom. In May 2012, there were over 15 million customers of M-PESA in Kenya.

Countries with a Mobile Money Presence

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Current Mobile Money Presence in African Countries[3]
Currency ISO Country Currency
XOF   Benin CFA franc
BWP   Botswana Botswana pula
XOF   Burkina Faso CFA franc
BIF   Burundi Burundi franc
XAF   Cameroon CFA franc
XAF   Chad CFA franc
CDF   Democratic Republic of the Congo Congolese franc
EGP   Egypt Egyptian pound
ETB   Ethiopia Ethiopian birr
XAF   Gabon CFA franc
GHS   Ghana Ghanaian cedi
GNF   Guinea Guinean franc
XOF   Guinea-Bissau CFA franc
XOF   Ivory Coast CFA franc
KES   Kenya Kenyan shilling
LSL   Lesotho Lesotho loti
LRD   Liberia Liberian dollar
MGA   Madagascar Malagasy ariary
MWK   Malawi Malawian kwacha
XOF   Mali CFA franc
MRO   Mauritania Mauritanian ouguiya
MUR   Mauritius Mauritian rupee
MAD   Morocco Moroccan dirham
MZN   Mozambique Mozambican metical
NAD   Namibia Namibian dollar
XOF   Niger CFA franc
NGN   Nigeria Nigerian naira
RWF   Rwanda Rwandan franc
XOF   Senegal CFA franc
SLL   Sierra Leone Sierra Leonean leone
SOS   Somalia shilling
ZAR   South Africa South African rand
SDG   Sudan Sudanese pound
SZL   Swaziland Swazi lilangeni
TZS   Tanzania Tanzanian shilling
XOF   Togo CFA franc
TND   Tunisia Tunisian dinar
UGX   Uganda Ugandan shilling
ZMW   Zambia Zambian kwacha
ZWD   Zimbabwe Zimbabwean dollar

References

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  1. ^ SmartCash"SmartCash".
  2. ^ M-PESA"M-Pesa".
  3. ^ "Mobile Money". GSMA. Retrieved 6 February 2015.