The value of mobile money transactions last year grew at the slowest pace in four years after the government raised taxes on such transactions by 25 percent from July 2023, making it more costly to send cash.
Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data shows that Sh7.95 trillion was transacted on mobile platforms in 2023—marking a marginal 0.57 percent growth from Sh7.9 trillion handled the previous year.
The growth in the value of mobile money transactions in 2023 is the lowest recorded over the past four years.
The 0.57 percent rise in the value of mobile money deals also marks a substantive decline compared to 2022, when a 26.6 percent growth after Sh7.9 trillion was transacted, up from Sh6.2 trillion in 2021.
The value had equally grown by 19.8 percent in 2021, from Sh5.2 trillion that was transacted through mobile money in 2020, meaning that the value of mobile money transactions grew by Sh1 trillion in 2021 and by Sh1.7 trillion in 2022.
Last year, however, the value of mobile money transactions increased by Sh45 billion, a growth rate of less than one percent, the KNBS report shows.
The government, through the Finance Act 2023, increased Excise Duty on mobile money transactions from 12 to 15 percent.
As a result, mobile network operators offering mobile money services raised the cost of sending money, which could have discouraged growth in the mobile money sector.
Safaricom, in the financial year to March 2023, reported that its mobile money platform, M-Pesa, handled 21.03 billion transactions valued at Sh35.86 trillion, up from Sh29.55 trillion the previous year.
“How we continued to create value in the financial year 2023. We enabled 2,600 transactions per second on Mpesa,” said Safaricom in its sustainability report for 2023.
