MTN Uganda trumpets text money

MTN Uganda, the country's largest mobile phone provider, says that nearly 900 000 people are using its text message money transfer since the service was introduced 15 months ago.

Since the launch of the MobileMoney service in March 2009, its 890 000 users have made 11.8 million transactions worth 195 million dollars, according to statistics released by the company.

"MobileMoney is one the fastest growing money transfer services in the world," Richard Mwami, who heads the initiative, told AFP.

The company said it expects to have two million users by the end of the year and 3.5 million by 2012.

In Kenya, where Safaricom’s M-PESA programme pioneered SMS money transfers two years ago, the popularity of the service has jumped from 52,000 users in April 2007 to 9.7 million as of last month, according to company statistics.

Figures from Uganda, Kenya and South Africa reveal that this enormous growth is primarily driven by small sum transactions among low-income earners.

"A lot of people have access to the technology of cell phones, but do not have access to a formal bank account," Franco Gresse, product manager of the eWallet at South Africa’s First National Bank (FNB) told AFP.

FNB customers are now sending roughly 130,000 dollars a day using the eWallet and, Gresse explained, city-dwelling breadwinners who send money home to rural areas are the service’s major users.

In Uganda, where the average MobileMoney transfer is 21 dollars, roughly 60 percent of the recipients live in rural areas.