GSMA Receives Additional Funding for Successful Mobile Money for the Unbanked Program

New MMU Research Reveals That There Are Now 60 Million Registered Mobile Money Users Globally

LONDON, May 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- The GSMA today announced that it has received an additional $9.8m USD from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The MasterCard Foundation and Omidyar Network to continue the successful Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) program for a three-year period to 2015.

"A decade ago, mobile money services for the unbanked did not exist, but due to the investment of philanthropic organizations and individuals, the innovation and skill of mobile operators, and the integration and collaborative services provided by the GSMA's MMU program and other partners, our research has shown that at least 60 million customers have registered for mobile money services," said Chris Locke, Executive Director, GSMA Development Fund.

The three main objectives of the MMU program are to support mobile network operators (MNOs) to identify, create and share best practices around how to scale mobile money deployments that sustainably serve unbanked clients; evaluate and promote mechanisms for harnessing economies of scale across the mobile money ecosystem; and equip mobile operators to successfully advocate for and shape regulatory environments that enable them to sustainably contribute to financial inclusion.

Key Findings from 2011 Global Mobile Money Adoption Survey
Today the GSMA also announced the results of the 2011 Global Mobile Money Adoption Survey, the most comprehensive picture to date of customer adoption of mobile money around the world. Fifty-two mobile money service providers across 35 countries participated in the survey, which revealed that in June 2011:

• Sixty million customers have registered for mobile money;
• Eleven services reported having more than 1 million registered customers and together these 11 services accounted for 85 per cent of the registered customers reported in the survey;
• Three of the eight fast-growing services identified in this survey are offered by operators with less than 25 per cent mobile market share in their country;
• Participants in this survey include almost 264,000 mobile money agents, 22 per cent more than in December 2010;
• Nearly 142 million transactions were processed and of these, 29.8 million were payments such as P2P transfers, bill payments, and bulk payments; and
• Sixty-eight per cent of functional transactions processed (i.e. P2P transfers, bill payments, bulk payments, and airtime purchases) were airtime top-ups with 27 per cent of payments being P2P transfers, making them the most common payment transaction.

The main objective of the 2011 Global Mobile Money Adoption Survey was to provide a more accurate picture of the extent of consumer adoption of mobile money around the world. Many decisions that mobile operators, investors (both charitable and financial), policy makers and financial inclusion advocates make hinge on implicit assumptions about the size of the mobile money industry today and its prospects for growth; as such, by generating better data on customer adoption it should improve the effectiveness of all these players. A complete analysis of the results of the survey is available at http://www.mmublog.org.

About the GSMA
The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide. Spanning more than 220 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world's mobile operators, as well as more than 200 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media and entertainment organizations. The GSMA also produces industry-leading events such as the Mobile World Congress and Mobile Asia Congress. 

For more information, please visit Mobile World Live, the online portal for the mobile communications industry, at www.mobileworldlive.com or the GSMA corporate website at http://www.gsma.com.