BY Emmanuel Elebeke

ABUJA—A report released by African Development Bank’s Financial Inclusion in Africa shows that 14 per cent of adults in Africa used mobile money in 2012.
The report revealed that technological advances, such as mobile money innovations, had started to make inroads into banking and the un-banked in Africa, with 14 percent of adults reporting they had used it in the past 12 months, in comparison with less than 6 per cent of adults in all other regions globally.

In the report, African Development Bank predicted that technology could be a “game changer” in drawing the financially excluded into the formal banking world.
Announcing the outline programme for this year’s conference, Mobile MoneyAfrica’s Principal Associate, Emmanuel Okoegwale, said:   “Out of more than 200 mobile money deployments globally, over 100 are in Africa, with West Africa alone accounting for 47, yet these are the regions with most unbanked when compared to other parts of the world.”

He said the event would address what needed to be done to overcome the hurdles of reaching the millions of people who didn’t have access to formal financial services, but yet own a phone in Africa.
Okoegwale said the 4th Mobile MoneyExpo would focus on promoting financial inclusion in Africa, a continent that has shown great promise in the mobile financial services sphere but yet grapples with millions that are actively unbanked across all regions.