State of the Industry 2013: Mobile Financial Services for the Unbanked

This report tracks key findings and insights on the growth of mobile money, mobile insurance, mobile credit, and mobile savings. The data in the report is gathered from the MMU Deployment Tracker, which monitors the number of live and planned mobile money services for the unbanked across the globe, and also from MMU's 2013 global survey. The report also presents mini case studies on mobile financial services as well as particular mobile money best practices. Key highlights include:

• Mobile money industry continues to grow and is now expanding across more regions. With 219 services in 84 countries at the end of 2013, mobile money is now available in most developing and emerging markets;
• Competition is increasing in many markets as mobile money is becoming a mainstream product for a growing number of operators;
• Number of active mobile money accounts is growing fast, and in June 2013, there were over 60 million active mobile money accounts globally;
• For the majority of providers however, building the foundations of their mobile money services remains challenging;
• Services that have already created solid foundations, have made progress in developing their product offering, extending the digital financial ecosystem and growing revenues.