The cash mobile money agents in Kenya handled last year recorded the slowest growth in history due to a struggling economy marked by depressed consumption.
According to the Central Bank of Kenya, the agents handled Sh7.95 trillion last year, representing a 0.6 percent growth from the Sh7.9 trillion recorded in 2022.
The Kenyan economy is largely consumption-driven, meaning mobile money agents play a key role in access to cash for daily spending. Therefore, the snail-pace growth points to a reduced demand for commodities as a result of falling real wages and an increase in commodity prices.
Increased statutory deductions, stagnant wages as inflation rises and layoffs compounded by rising cost of living are among the economic hardships facing Kenyans.
The downturns have further been worsened by high lending rates and increased government domestic lending that is hurting private sector activity and job creation.
According to the Purchasing Managers Index — an index that measures the robustness of the business environment — the Kenyan private sector contracted 10 out of 12 months last year.
Relative to the country’s Gross Domestic Product, the value was equivalent to 53 percent of the country’s total output by the end of the third quarter.
The slow growth was recorded despite the agents having held Sh788 billion in December last year, an all-time high Christmas and New Year spending.
A further analysis reveals that in November the value was down by Sh35 billion, a rare contraction.
77m accounts
Over the year, the number of mobile accounts increased by 4.1 million and has since plateaued at 77.3 million while active agents increased by eight percent to close the year at 322,404.
According to the Communications Authority, Safaricom’s M-Pesa holds a 97.1 percent market share followed by Airtel Money at 2.8 percent while Telkom Kenya’s T-Kash holds a tiny 0.1 percent of the mobile money market share.
