Rwandans and people of Mali are the least likely to make mobile money transactions compared to other money transfer modes in sub-Saharan Africa. This was revealed in a survey by a US-based research group Gallup Inc.
The report titled “Payments and Money Transfer Behavior of Sub-Saharan Africans” released in June indicates that 24% of Rwandans that transferred money in 2011 used mobile money services.
Accodring to the report, Kenyans and South Africans were the most likely to having made any transactions in the 30 days prior to the survey (76% and 69%, respectively), while residents in Rwanda and Mali were the least likely to do so (24% and 27%, respectively).
Uganda(53%) is second to Kenya(76%) in the number of people that use mobile money transactions. Statistics also show that only 44% of Tanzanians embraced mobile money transfer. The survey was conducted in 11 countries.
South Africans and Kenyans were also the most likely to only have used non-cash (electronic) channels (18% and 15%, respectively). In all other countries, fewer than 1 in 10 respondents used only electronic payment channels.
In Mali, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone just a handful of respondents reported this (1%-2%).
However, even in South Africa and Kenya, the two countries with the most advanced payment markets, respondents were more likely to report that they only used informal cash payments than to have used only electronic payment methods; 31% of South Africans and 22% of Kenyans used only informal cash payments in the past 30 days.
These shares translate into 10.9 million and 5.2 million potential consumers, respectively.
The fact that cash transactions are still prevalent even in Kenya, where mobile money penetration is nearly complete, is likely due to some people carrying money or sending it with traveling relatives to save on the money transfer fees rather than to lack of coverage within the country.
Residents of Sierra Leone were clearly the most likely in the region to exclusively make cash transactions (47%).
The study finds huge differences in payment behavior between educational groups- More than 8 in 10 (83%) of respondents with high levels of education had made any transactions in the 30 days prior to the survey, compared to 6 in 10 (59%) of respondents with average levels of education and 4 in 10 (41%) of respondents with low levels of education.
The highly educated were almost 6 times as likely as those with the lowest levels of education to have made only non-cash transactions (23% vs. 4%, respectively).
Youngest respondents (15-18 years) were less likely than older respondents to have made any transactions (36% vs. 50%-54% of other age groups).
The youngest were also less likely to have used only electronic channels (3% vs. 7%-9% of other age groups). The survey did not find significant differences in payment behavior of men and women.
Focusing on differences between various levels of urbanization, large city dwellers and those living in suburbs of large cities more often reported to have made a transaction than residents of rural areas or small towns.
More affluent respondents and city dwellers were also more likely than the poor and rural residents to have only made electronic transactions.
That said, high shares of large city dwellers, those living on more than $2 a day and the richest 20% and of the population made only informal cash payments (34%, 28% and 27%, respectively) implying a large underserved market among all groups.
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