Financial Inclusion
How Mobile Money Will Change the Developing World
by 
Elena Mesropyan · November 29, 2018
MEDICIGlobal Head of Content
Today, 31% of the global adult population doesn’t have a bank account. But in a certain part of the world – Africa – inclusion is not about bank account ownership. Moreover, since bank account ownership, access to ATMs, mobile banking, and internet banking are found to be inversely related to mobile money ownership, it’s possible that in developing markets with weak financial infrastructure, mobile money accounts will continue to play a significant role in democratizing financial services for the previously excluded population.
With 271 live services in 93 countries and 64% of the developing world covered, mobile money continues to deepen financial inclusion.
Source: Global Findex Database 2017
The World Bank shares that the power of financial technology to expand access to and use of accounts is demonstrated most persuasively in sub-Saharan Africa, where 21% of adults now have a mobile money account – nearly twice the share in 2014 and easily the highest of any region in the world.
By 2017, the Kenyan mobile money market, for example, had grown to 37 million registered accounts and $36 billion in transactions. Regionally, there were 276 services across 90 markets, with over...
