Decoding mobile financial services

A lot of interest has gathered around mobile financial services (MFS) in the past decade. Currently, mobile money is available in 85% of countries where the vast majority of the population lacks access to a formal financial institution. In 2015, there were 29 cross-border mobile money initiatives connecting 19 countries.

This increasing prominence of MFS is largely driven by the accessibility and ease of use which mobile as a platform brings to financial services. Because of ubiquity of devices and affordability of use, consumers are connected to their mobile devices to an extent not matched by any other platform. This has led to mobile increasingly becoming a preferred medium for financial services.